2012 rules

[Buzz Kanter]

Just finished reading the new rules and congratulate the team in what must have been a lot of work to put together.

Am I the only one confused by Rule II E 3? Can we get help or not? I am confused by this.

[jurassic]

3. During a stage, a competing motorcycle may receive service and/or assistance from official MOTORCYCLE CANNONBALL
2012 Course Vehicles and personnel, from other riders, and from businesses and individuals not otherwise directly
associated with any team. During a stage, a competing motorcycle must not receive service or assistance from anyone
associated with any Event team including, but not limited to, support vehicles, family members, and friends


This just means that you cant receive help from your support crew or any other support crew while on the route in competition. You can receive help from other riders, sweep and staff vehicles or innocent bystanders. Support vehicles will be on a different route anyways ,and it would be complicated to have them return and help you, and would defeat the purpose of the competition.
A lot of riders were not happy about this rule in 2010, so a few days into the event I abandoned the support crew rule, which pissed off all the other riders. I expect the 2012 rules will also not be generally liked by all, but we will do our best.

[darrylri]

The rules looked very coherent to me, although I will have to look at them again in detail when i get home.

A couple of questions I do have are about people who want to ride along. I have 4 other people on my team, but they will not be able to be in my support vehicle, which only has two legal seats. Three of them expect to ride their modern bikes along. One of them will be attempting to video the event. Are they barred from the course at all times, even if not assisting me or others?

Also, I have had several people ask if it's ok for them to follow the events on their own bikes. In on case, a Canadian couple I know, but who are not on my team, want s to ride along the whole first day.

[gww]

so a few days into the event I abandoned the support crew rule, which pissed off all the other riders
so how many points did you aquire daily?

[gww]

so a few days into the event I abandoned the support crew rule, which pissed off all the other riders
so how many points did you aquire daily?

[jurassic]

Hi Darryl, in the 2010 event we had quite a few late model bikes following us on any given day. Some would follow for a few hundred miles or a few days. That was all fine and added to the fun of the event. Besides, we are on public roads, and couldn't stop people from riding along even if we wanted to. However, having three of your crew members shadowing you all the way across the country could raise some problems with the other riders should you win the event or place high in the standings. If a grievance was voiced then we would more than likely have to side with the person that didn't have support crew out on the course. We do want this to be fun and memorable for everyone though, and would never ask anyone to leave the event based on disqualification from the competition.
Another problem might be with the ferry. At this point we have reserved most of the spots on the ferry for our time slot, and I am not sure there will be more space available. If there were more space available then any late model riders that were riding along with us would have to make reservations on the ferry the first week in march. The same time as the Cannonballers will be making their reservations. {more to come on that issue soon}.

[jurassic]

(02-21-2012 10:08 AM)gww Wrote:  so a few days into the event I abandoned the support crew rule, which pissed off all the other riders
so how many points did you aquire daily?

Hi Gary, all the riders will aquire as many points in a day as miles they have ridden. The maximum amount of points a rider can score on any particular stage is the full amount of miles on the course that day. So if stage 6 were to have 318 miles from the start hotel to the stop hotel ,then you would be able to score no more than 318 points.

[darrylri]

(02-21-2012 07:51 PM)jurassic Wrote:  Hi Darryl, in the 2010 event we had quite a few late model bikes following us on any given day. Some would follow for a few hundred miles or a few days. That was all fine and added to the fun of the event. Besides, we are on public roads, and couldn't stop people from riding along even if we wanted to. However, having three of your crew members shadowing you all the way across the country could raise some problems with the other riders should you win the event or place high in the standings. If a grievance was voiced then we would more than likely have to side with the person that didn't have support crew out on the course. We do want this to be fun and memorable for everyone though, and would never ask anyone to leave the event based on disqualification from the competition.

Lonnie, the last thing I want to do isviolate either the rules or the spirit of the event. I perfectly well understand that the intent is to have rider and machine persevere across the continent. Will my video guy be allowed to follow me, but otherwise not interact on the course?

[jurassic]

Camera and video guys are fine, as long as they are willing to share a little of their video with us for our daily posts to the website.

[darrylri]

Great, there's no problem with that.

I thought up one more question. The rules say no GPS devices, but I have one of these Spot Messenger units. It's primary use is as an emergency finder; if you're down and hurt, you hit the button and it sends a satellite signal to their operations center, and they locate the local authorities and send them out to you. But there's also a feature where you can set up your unit to send a location message every so often, and that gets put up on a special webpage so people on the internet can track your progress.

It does use the GPS system to get your coordinates, but other than a few LEDs, there's no display on the unit. Here's the product page:
http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=102