Big Tex Rally Clinic

September 1, 2012

The Big Tex 36-hour rally is coming up October 19 and 20.  The rally master, Wayne Boyter, was nice enough to offer a clinic to go over tactics of rally participation and including a 4-hour practice rally today.  While Wayne was describing to the 9 clinic participants what might be experienced during the the day and a half of focused riding and “scavenger hunting”, I was inputting into my routing program the bonus waypoints of the day.  The 15 locations were at first overwhelming to obtain in 4 hours, but after studying the offered points vs. distance and time, I had a plan together before the 10:00 start.  There were not going too be many stops in my list, and the 70 mile run to Athens caught my eye early to get the heck out of Dallas.  So, after committing to this location, I tried to add enough bonus locations to fill up the allotted time without going over and losing penalty points or risk not finishing.

So, at 10:02 the scoring team recorded my start time and I rolled towards my planned locations.

Fiddlers statue in Athens – 141 points   George at the Plano BMW shop – 50 points

Deep Ellum Neon Sign – 10 points         Texas Theater on Jefferson – 51 points

The riders returned back to have their mileage checked, and time stamp the return.

We summarized our ride in the packed documentation, added up the bonus points, and went over the results with the scoring team.

The location points were tallied along with some other additional bonuses.  Another bonus was given for riding at least 175 miles in the allotted 4 hours.  I wound up with 194 miles, gaining 50 points.  A non-ride bonus of 50 points was available for bring back a 6-pack of cold soda to the finish.  I was nearing the finish, and finally figured out I should top off the tank with fuel before I ran out.  I quickly found out there are no packaged 6-packs in a convenience store, so after the third stop, I bought 6 cans of Arizona
Iced Tea, and gained my 50 points.

I guess the Athens location turned out to be a good strategy, as I finished in first place, snagging 1,000 points to apply to the October rally.  Tong would have taken first, but he was several minutes late to finish and accumulated some penalty points.

It was a fun, hot day of riding and strategy, that seems to keep my mind ticking.  That’s a good thing.

Photos    https://photos.app.goo.gl/Huhq9dayLsJMmBNc6

Tracklog    https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/20120901bigtexrallyclinic–20120902