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| Kirsten's RT... next to a sleek rally wanna-be ride. |
This is a kinder, gentler rally. There is no trickery. The hidden bonus location for Friday night was on the front page, first paragraph of the rally pack. Yet this morning, the Rallymasters wanted to know if 125 bonus locations for a 24-hour rally was enough. After some uncertain nods, they said, “Well, come on up.” Just in case, they had added a Saturday morning special bonus, with some common Rallymaster reminders. Your rally flag must be in every photo. If you are one of the two-up riding teams, one of you must be in the picture. “It doesn’t matter who, you can switch if you like,” said Connie. “Do we get extra points if the most attractive person is in the photo?” asked Mikala of the two-up Goldwing team of Chris and Mikayla. Absolutely! the gathered crowd answered with hoots and claps while the Rallymasters shook their heads.
But the
clock was already ticking towards 8:00 a.m.
After a coordinated rider launch, I hopped into the mobile Rally HQ to
hot foot it over to said bonus location, only for us to pull up as most of the
riders were already pulling out. Still,
after taking some photos of the smallest museum in St. Paul, we enjoyed our bonus
points with a side of delicious coffee and pineapple zucchini bread. These Rallymasters know how to coordinate a
bonus location for maximum benefit as the small museum is right outside the fantastic
Workhorse Coffee Bar.
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| The Saturday “take over” of the smallest museum in St. Paul features the MN1K! |
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| “Be EZ on Jeezy” |
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| Dan Roth pre-launch at MN1K Rally HQ. |
The good
people at Rally HQ– Motoprimo Motorsports, MN always make a donation to this event to
support the purchase of shirts and such, which allows the MN1K to make a larger
donation to the Lustgarten Fund. Fighting pancreatic cancer is a cause
near and dear to this rally family.
Motoprimo also has a large showroom, with plenty of space to share with
riders and easy access to I-35. Which is
handy. Even though about half the ramps
and some entire sections of the interstates surrounding Rally HQ have closed
this weekend for the short window that MN gets to do summer roadwork. [Rally watchers will remember that this was
an issue last year for some non-Waze riders during the Iron Butt Rally 2017
whose HQ was smack in a spaghetti bowl of highways.]
Tonight, as
grey clouds and rain have passed over HQ, we’ve been watching big weather blobs
on the radar. There are tornado warnings
in Iowa. It could be a wet 24
hours. Randy has received only a handful
of calls from riders today, who spread throughout the available locations in
the Midwest. One rider called just to say he’s loving this
rally and to thank the Gabricks. That’s
a welcome note as the dark comes on and riders start to consider their options
for the minimum 3 hour rest bonus. Scoring
will start at 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning. Riders
need to be back at Rally HQ by 7:59:59.
Those who misjudge the timing will DNF at 8:00 a.m.
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| Analog GPS routing |
Kirsten’s Spot
is making steady progress. When she
called this afternoon, she had already stopped for gas twice. She checked her tire, and with another 400
miles on it thus far, it still looked good (i.e. no glittery spots). The rain was holding off, but the fog was thick
and the stop and go traffic kept her attention as she made her way to a daylight-only
bonus. Heading into a busy downtown
location, Kirsten said, “we’ll see – this could turn into a flower-sniffing
ride.” She had just come from the Museum
of Torture (“I swear I’m NOT going in there - I don’t care how many points it’s
worth”) and got a tip from an employee at another spot (“the guy before you
said he had to have his flag in the photo”).
Too bad for one rider who left his flag 100 miles behind him. His face will become his flag for the
duration. And tonight, riders will be looking
for the pieces of calm between the storms and the bonus locations to line up a
path to the finish.
