Mason Dixon 20/20 2018 - Day 2

Is This a Winner?


The alarm sounded at 3:45 am and I awoke surprisingly fresh.  I think my adrenaline was on overdrive already.  We were required to have a rest stop of at least 3 hours so with a start of 1:06 am I needed to be at the gas pump at 4:06 am.  The receipt printed out with 4:10am which was close enough. After documenting, I set off for the first of my combo string of the morning.

For this rally the RallyBubba set up a string of 7 bonus locations, that when claimed in sequential order, would allow you to also claim an additional Male Actor bonus worth 5,306 points.  The string were sites the John Wilkes Booth made his escape from D.C. after the assassination of President Lincoln.  Bonus JWB1 was located near Fords Theater and the last bonus JWB7 was located just a few miles in Virginia near the town of Port Royal.  So since this was a combo string I planned to capture them in reverse order, 7 to 1.  

JWB7 is a Roadside Historical Marker (RHM) on US 301. The barn where Booth was surrounded and killed now sits on Fort AP Hill property so the RHM is as close as you can get.  An interesting little tidbit about the route planning to get to this location. The shortest route to go from the end of my Rest bonus to the bonus location was to take US17 east from Fredericksburg to Port Royal and then turn south on US301.  Unfortunately, all of the route planning software programs think that the first turn around to get to the northbound side of US301 is nearly 9 miles further south for an 18 mile round trip.  Since I travel that route a few times a year, I knew that there was a public turn around lane just a hundred yards south of the RHM.  This was key to planning this combo.

Timing was also key to this string as my planned 2nd stop, JWB6, was designated as a 'Daylight Only' bonus which, for the purposes of this rally, was defined as the period between 5:30 am and 8:30 pm.

I arrived at the JWB6 bonus about 5:35 am and snapped my photo of the Cedar Point Wildlife Management Area map before having to backtrack a short way for the JWB5 bonus.

I had a client located in southern Maryland for several years so I was somewhat familiar with the area which really helped in making good time.  The countryside is quite beautiful as it is a mixture of forest, farms and wetlands.  The just rising sun make for pretty streams of light as it filtered through the trees along the route. JWB5 was a RHM just a short distance off of US301.

Heading back north again I had to make a loop through some additional Maryland suburban countryside.  Subdivisions interspersed with farms made for a quiet morning ride.  JWB4 was a more modern version of a RHM.

Dr. Samual Mudd lives in infamy for patching up Booth's broken leg as he fled from DC. The Doctor was part of the original group the planned the assassination.  Convicted to life in prison, he was pardoned by President Jackson for his work in saving lives during a southern Florida Yellow Fever outbreak.  This RHM was designated JWB3.

JWB2 was located at the Mary Surratt house in Clinton, MD.  There were several other RHMs present at this location so the mantra of 'read the rally book' is vital to a successful score.

The final location in the JWB bonus string was located in the heart of DC around the corner from Fords Theater.  Thinking that the Theater would be the bonus location, I had made several inquiries with the RallyBubba prior to the rally as to whether the bonus location coordinates were wrong.  Craftily, the RallyBubba knew that the bonus location sign was not on Google Maps Streetview.  After some more research I finally figured out that Booth had escaped out the back of the Theater and taken a still existing alley way out to F Street where a horse was waiting for him.

Of note is the actual photo of the marker.  The same image is not on both sides of the marker.  I had looked at the rally book and saw the image of the large building on the left in the photo.  Then I stepped off the bike to snap the photo of the other side.  Luckily, I caught myself and stepped around and took the correct photo.  I don't know if it was important to this rally but in some others, taking the picture of the wrong side of a sign can mean denial of the bonus.  Attention to detail is critical.

So having completed the JWB combination string in sequential order I recorded my Actor Male bonus AM03 worth 5,306 points.  That critical Male Actor allowed me to finish another big bonus point value Project.

Now I needed to pick up a few more resources to complete my other Projects.  I needed a Female Actress and none of my choices to capture it were optimal.  I was running low on production revenues so I chose to head to AF13 as she would only cost me $6 million.  The problem was I had to transition a lot of DC urban streets and the combination of stop signs, 6 way traffic lights and such made for a major time suck.  Plus arriving at the bonus location did not reveal where the bonus was at.  Needless to say I spotted a depression in the ground and thought "Surely not" but, lo and behold, the bonus location was a subterranean plaque near a storm drain. (Edit: another participant pointed out that this is not a storm drain but rather a natural spring location which is the namesake for Silver Spring, MD.) 

I had some juicy options in the Baltimore area but after being accosted by street thugs there a number of years ago while riding through, I avoid Baltimore at all cost.  Just not going to take that chance.

So bypassing Baltimore I made a spirited run up to Reading, PA to capture my last Director bonus (DI09) at the local airport.  They were getting ready to have an airshow later that afternoon so this tugged at my heart strings telling me to stay for a while.  

My production company reserves were almost depleted so I was forced to head to the nearby revenue bonus (RE3) location in Port Clinton, PA.  I had been there last year to visit the Triumph/BMW dealer where the IBR winner Jim Owen and runner-up Bob Lilly were giving a presentation.  The task here was to stop at the local sweet shop and purchase a bag of roasted peanuts and bring them back to rally HQ.  With the purchase complete and $10 million stuffed into the production company coffers, it was off to complete the rally.

Of a somber note, the only mandatory bonus location in the whole rally is to visit the gravesite of Col. James Young in the Ft. Indiantown National Cemetery. On Memorial Day weekend, it is truly humbling to turn into the main entrance and behold the tens of thousands of American flags lining the roadway.  It is just incredible. I wish with all my heart that everyone that I know could visit here one time in their lives on Memorial Day weekend.  Col Young was an early Rallymaster of the Mason Dixon 20/20.  Sadly in 2001 while riding in a rally in Colorado, Jim was on a back country gravel road in the mountains and somehow left the roadway.  His body was found a week later.  The visit to his gravesite each year is a tribute to his service and memory.

After visiting Col Young, there was another minor point bonus location (LO01) within the National Cemetery that I just so happened to need to complete a Project.  Being Memorial Day weekend, it was difficult to get to and the guard on duty wasn't too keen on us using the cemetery as a bonus location.  Obviously he didn't know the history of Col Young and why we visit.  Thankfully after a 5 minute lecture he allowed me to pull my bike up in the parking lot to snap the picture that I needed.

Now it was time to seriously boogie back to the host hotel and the finish line before the 2pm deadline.  Get there at 2:00:01 and you are DNF'd (Did Not Finish).  A glance at my GPS let me know that I could snag one more bonus location for additional insurance on my Projects, and the additional points that it provided.  The location (LO23) was a covered bridge located on the grounds of Messiah College just south of Harrisburg, PA.  Being Memorial Day weekend, the Interstate traffic was heavy but fortunately moving.  A couple of other riders were bagging the last minute bonus as well.  This one required that quick check of the rally book as it required that your motorcycle be in the picture.

With the bonus collection portion of the rally complete now it was time to turn for the barn and make haste to the finish line.  After a quick splash and dash for some fuel, I hopped onto I-81 and hustled to the finish.  Arriving with about 20 minutes to spare, it was a relief to be done.

Per rally rules, we had to be in line and ready for scoring by 3pm sharp.  So I grabbed my rally pack, bonus sheet, and laptop and made my way to the banquet room to prep my bonus submission. After going over the numbers I realized that I had successfully achieved a really competitive score.  The excitement began to grow that I might have actually won this thing.

This is what I submitted.  The P03, P06 and P09 represent the combination 'Projects' that I completed.  The AM03 bonus represents the completion of the JWB combo string.  Boom.  This was a winner for sure.

Note: This contains post rally edits where I flipped the order of the JWB bonus. The correct order completed in the rally is the reverse of those listed.

Little did I know how disappointed I was to be in less than an hour.

The first indication that things were not going to go well was when I overheard someone asking if anyone in line had completed the JWB string.  I confessed that I had.  They asked how I did it with the requirement to do them in sequential order.  I replied that I did, 7 to 1.  They said that the initial 'Cover Sheet' sent out a week before the rally stated that the order must be 1 to 7.  Oh crap.

From the Cover Sheet document:

AM03
To claim AM03, you must obtain JWB1 to JWB7 in that exact order without exception.

At this point I am beginning to get sad and desperate.  Surely I didn't mess up that bad.

I went in to scoring and sure enough, there on the scorer's screen was the note 'Did not complete in correct order.'  Now I'm really sad.  I had several discussions with the lead scorer Eric Bray and the RallyBubba Rick Miller regarding how the rally book description was written.  We settled on credit for AM03 but no credit for the project.  I'm good with that.  A second 5th place finish is wonderful to me.

All that attention to detail mentioned throughout this story, and I missed a critical piece right off the bat before the rally even started.  Oh well, I have two more tries to get it right in the MD20/20.

Thanks for hanging through this report.  Thanks to Rick Miller for a wonderful puzzle and a well run rally.  Thanks to all the support staff who assisted with scoring, registration, food, etc.  Without you, the rally is not possible.  Thanks to the staff at the Comfort Inn Martinsburg for being such gracious hosts.  Lastly, thanks to my wonderful wife, Karen, for supporting me and letting me indulge myself in this endeavor.  

Footnote:  When I got home I went straight to my computer and figured out that I could have completed the JWB bonus string in the correct order and finished with a slightly higher score than what I had thought.  Lesson learned.

Here is the revised plan post rally showing that the capture of the AM03 bonus in the correct order was possible but would have had to been a perfect run.  Remember the JWB7 bonus ride time is longer due to the routing shortcoming of Basecamp and Google Maps. LO23 would have been an optional capture if time had allowed.  Total score with this plan would have been 77,421.