The Penultimate Penultimate...
The Mason Dixon 20/20 Scavenger Hunt Rally, started in 2000, has grown to be the premier 32-hour rally on the east coast. Held over the Memorial Day weekend, it is positioned to be the warm up rally for the major multi-day events held mid-summer. Participants gather to measure themselves against the competition and to see the latest farkling ideas on the market. [Farkling - adding devices and/or other modifications to a rally bike to enhance the competitiveness and safety of the participant.) The Mason Dixon is unique among other 32-hour rallies in that the start and finish locations are the same place rather than the scatter starts of some other rallies. All riders participate on a level playing field.
The 2018 edition of the Mason Dixon 20/20 rally is the rally before the next to the last rally hence the title of this story. The final edition of the MD 20/20 will be held in, er, 2020. Participants in the 2018 and 2019 editions will have dibs on available slots for the final 2020 edition. As in previous editions, the major carrot at the end of the road is the highly coveted automatic draw entry for the winner into the upcoming 11-day Iron Butt Rally.
The 2017 running of the MD 20/20 was my rookie year and I was very happy to have scored a 5th place finish. Much of that was due to the now infamous '207W' bonus that bit approximately 50% of the field. It was a part of a combination string bonus where if you got all the components in the proper order you would be awarded a ton of additional points. Most of the components consisted of roadside historical markers (RHM), however, one bonus location was on a granite monolith that was about 20 ft away from an RHM. Riders incorrectly assumed that the RHM was the bonus location and they ended up being very sad.
Based on my success in 2017, I was really looking forward to the 2018 edition. Coming off a disappointing showing in the recent Rock-n-Ride rally the month before, I knew that I needed to step up my game if I were to prepare myself for the upcoming Bull Lite IX 6-day rally in July. So the MD 20/20 prep became an obsession. As per standard procedure, the bonus information was released by the Rallymaster (aka RallyBubba) the Sunday prior to the start. Practically every waking moment outside of the rally funding work activities was spent in planning and replanning the MD route. Fortunately, there is a lot of chatter available for this rally via a dedicated forum and participants were active in asking questions regarding the bonus locations and the requirements spelled out in rally documents (we will return to this point later).
The theme of the 2018 edition was Directionally Challanged. Each participant was required to come up with a 'Production Company' name as all the bonus locations were necessary resources to making a TV Show or Movie. Resources included Male Actors, Female Actresses, Directors, Locations, Music, and Situations. The pariticipant's job was to contract as many resources as possible within the allotted time frame. Of course, resources cost money so each Production Company started with a $125 million dollar budget that could be spent on contracting resources. The Production Company was required to remain solvent at all times so there were 4 'revenue' bonus locations that added to the reserves. Big bonus points could also be gained by obtaining resources to complete 'Projects' such as a Documentary, TV Show, or one of several pre-designated movies such as the Wizard of Oz, etc. The really big bonus Project, the movie Wedding Singer, required riders to be at a specific location in North Carolina at precisely 5:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoon.
My anxiety level was off the chart leading up to this rally as I thought that I had come up with a super competitive ride plan. I was going to be able to complete 4 Projects including the big Wedding Singer project. As I arrived at the host hotel (Comfort Inn in Martinsburg, WV) on Friday afternoon, only a few riders had arrived. Following check-in we were required to ride a predefined loop to calibrate our odometers. Mine reads about 1.5% slow so that is factored in to my final reported mileage after the rally. Little did I know then, some confusion on recording my odometer/tripmeter numbers would cause some drama after the rally.
Friday night we sat down to a pre-rally dinner (who knew that Walmart fried chicken is really that good!) and swap stories with other riders. Looking around the room there were a lot of 'Big Dawgs' in the crowd including 2-time IBR winner Jim Owen and Butt Lite runner-up Kirsten Talkin-Spaulding. With the knowledge that nearly 1/3 of the participants were previous IBR finishers made my anxiety level rise even further. "Was my plan really that good?" I kept asking myself.
After a surprisingly good night's sleep, I woke up at 3:45am to shower and get my stuff together. We could begin to 'stage' our bikes for the start at 4:45am and have breakfast at 5am (thank you Comfort Inn staff for so graciously serving breakfast early for us). The mandatory riders meeting started precisely at 5:15am. At that time RallyBubba Rick Miller and staff handed out the sealed rally packs with instructions to not open them yet. After everyone had received their packs, we were allowed to open them and begin asking questions. We were warned that everything in the envelope, including the envelope, had to be turned back in at the end of the rally. When questions were answered, we were turned loose about 5:40am.
Like everyone else, I gathered up my rally pack and made haste out to the bike to get started. My plan was fairly ambitious so I didn't have time to waste. Storing away my rally pack, I went through my routine, insert ear plugs, connect to and turn on my headset, put phone in the cradle and plug in, put on my LD Comfort dorag, put helmet on, put....jacket...where the hell is my jacket? Crap. Fat Boy don't sprint anymore so I made my best approximation heading back into the hotel, down the stairs, to the banquet room to my seat where my jacket is hanging onto the back of. #^$&#($%&#$ as I had back up the stairs and out to the bike. By this time most of the field has already departed. I lost another 10 minutes of time. Hopefully this would be my one big mistake of the whole rally. Sadly, it wasn't.
Blasting off to the north up I-81 and transitioning to I-70W I picked up the Penn Turnpike for a few miles before heading north again on I-99 where I started a rural transition to my first bonus location. The weather was absolutely perfect and the morning ride through the Pennsylvania countryside was pure bliss. The first bonus was in the town of Windber, PA and was a RHM for John Weismuller (aka Tarzan). I had fortunately discovered the week before that the RHM was about 100 yards away across the bridge from where the rally data GPS location said that it was. 
After a quick snap and recordation, I moved less than a mile down the same street to a second bonus location for Alan Freed who coined the phrase Rock n Roll. Whereas the previous bonus was for a Male Actor, this was a Music bonus.
Continuing my ride to my most northern bonus location of the day, I captured another Male Actor bonus near Jonestown, PA which was the site of the tragic flood of 1889 when a dam burst just upstream from this location.
Turning back south on US 219, some thin mountain fog shrouded the roadway making for a comfortable and peaceful run down to the site of the Quecreek Mine disaster. The monument to the miners who perished was the bonus location. Just as I finished up another rider pulled up which got me thinking how many others were following this same route.
After rejoining the Penn Turnpike westbound my next stop was outside Perryopolis (kinda rolls off the tonque right?) southeast of Pittsburgh. This one is memorable as the ride out to the location led to a single lane tunnel that opened out onto a long single lane bridge over the, get ready for it, Youghiogheny River. A really long train caught me shortly after crossing the bridge and caused a 10 minute delay.
I was making good time and staying largely on schedule. The weather was just wonderful and traffic was light given the holiday weekend. I made my way down to Charleroi, PA for a Female Actress bonus before making my way south into West Virginia via the Mon-Fayette Toll Road (PA-43).
The next bonus was in downtown Morgantown, WV which, based on prior experience attending some football games, I knew was going to be a big time suck. All three GPS units agreed on a convoluted route up and down and around, left and right until I ended up in downtown. The bonus was a statue of Morgantown native Don Knotts (aka Barney Fife). As I normally do, a quick check of the rally book included instructions that I had to be in the photo along with my rally flag. A passing WVU student gladly snapped my photo and I resumed my odyssey of trying to get out of downtown Morgantown.Time was ticking away as I kept a watchful eye on my expected time of arrival for the 5:30 pm bonus. Now began the sprint down through West Virginia to capture a few more bonus locations and arrive on time.
Just a short distance away in Fairmont was a bonus location tagged to count as a Female Actress, in this case Fairmont native Mary Lou Retton.
Jumping back on US-19 South, I made surprisingly good time heading towards Beckley. As is the norm when I ride through West Virginia, the good weather turned to crap and I hit heavy rain for the next 3 hours. I'm talking buckets. The kind that you can't see more than 50 ft ahead. Ugh. Slogging onto I-77 South, I really appreciated the protection afforded by the Triumph Trophy. At highway speed only my toes and the top of my helmet were in the elements. Of course, that all ended as I left the Interstate to jog over to Mt. Airy (aka Mayberry) for a picture at the statue of Andy Griffith and a young Ron Howard. Not surprisingly, there were several other riders at this bonus location as it was a coveted Directors bonus. It, too, required me to be in the photo and a local who was enthralled with all the motorcycles was happy to stand in the pouring rain to take our pictures.
Several of us departed together to continue south out of Mt. Airy on US601. The pouring rain continued for the 50ish miles to the next bonus. Thankfully as we approached the location the storm cell had finally moved east of us. I took my snapshot of the historical marker and caught up with some paperwork that I had avoided during the rain. My bonus location stops are still taking just a bit longer than what I would like but I think they are as good as they are going to get. An experienced LD rider, Troy Martin, advised me to always read the rally book BEFORE you snag a bonus. You will be much happier if you do (see paragraph about the 207W bonus above).
Seeing the ETA on the GPS still in the positive I went ahead and made one more stop at the desperately needed revenue bonus. Our task was to go inside a JR Cigar store and purchase a cigar costing $2 or more and bring it back unscathed to the rally HQ. The RallyBubba had plans for all of those cigars. This stop added a muchly needed $25 million dollars to my production company's coffers. I wouldn't be hitting another revenue bonus location until late in the rally tomorrow so this one was a blessing.Finally I was on the road to the nearby big point bonus location on Lake Norman, NC. Groups of other riders were all converging on this location so a steady stream of bikes filed through the upscale neighborhood surrounding Trump National Golf Club Charlotte. As we arrived at the designated coordinates we happened up a lakeside wedding in progress. It turns out a couple of LD riders were getting hitched and had consented to have their wedding as a big point bonus location. Our task was to assemble precisely at 5:30pm and have a group picture taken with the bride and groom. If you got there at 5:31pm you were SOL.
It was a lot of fun and we were all laughing hard, particularly the official wedding photographer when the 1-2-3 was given and everyone shouted, "Cheesedick!". Needless to say we had to shoot the pic several times.
I had planned on this bonus to take about 30 minutes so I was elated when we were turned loose about 5:40. I really needed the extra cushion as my schedule for reaching my rest bonus was going to push my schedule tomorrow to the point of being razor thin.
So finally I get to turn back north and start working my way back towards home where I had planned to take my rest bonus. Hitting I-74 to Greensboro where I picked up US29. I was running low on fuel but hoping to make it to Danville, VA as their gas prices are ridiculously low, usually about .30 cheaper than anywhere else. I rolled in to the station showing 8 miles on the range to empty indicator.
Since I still was ahead of schedule I went turned east and rode out on US460 to Appomattox, VA to snap a much need Music bonus. The real downside to this was that it put me on some serious rural county roads where deer are thicker than fleas. We're not talking overgrown jackrabbit Texas deer but full size make your life miserable deer. And yes they were everywhere but thankfully not the roadway.I forgot to add this in the original post. For the second time this year, I ran up on a driver's license checkpoint in the middle of BF Virginia during a rally. Two deputies had staked out an intersection and were very interested in why I was riding through deer infested roads at this time of the night. I just said I'm trying to get home and after about 10 minutes they let me go. This is getting really annoying.
Finally reaching Charlottesville I was able to capture 2 Actress Female bonus locations that were close together.
The second bonus was located at the home where famed artist Georgia O'Keeffe lived during her residency at the University of Virginia.
Thankfully I've travelled many times from Charlottesville to Fredericksburg and know the fastest route. None of the GPS units will ever plan that route so I was able to shave another 10 minutes off the ETA. Rest bonus started shortly after 1am and I made the short 1 mile run to the house for a quick shower (to get all the manure off me) and to collapse in my own bed.
Status after Day 1:
Day 2 continued...
Great read, James!
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