Saturday, April 28, 2012

Heart of Texas Rally–The 12 hours of fun

I was awake before my alarm went off, no surprise there. I had packed the bike and prepped everything yesterday. So all I had to do was wake, shower and hit the road. I managed to do that by 4:30 which put me on Galveston island around 5:45. So I parked at a gas station near the first bonus and waited.

I had simple goals for this rally. I wanted to ride a good ride, get all the points on my route and finish in the top half. If I managed my route correctly I’d score 3,250 points. Another rider I was in communications with this week had a 3,450 point route and I knew there was a rider coming from New Mexico who would surely ride a 4,000+ point route. So I had no delusions of winning this thing.

Here’s the itinerary that I put in the map pouch of my tank bag.
itinerary

At 6:02 I filled up my tank and said “Yes” to the receipt question. Oooops, the time on the pump was 5:47am. That wouldn’t work. Instead of trying to get some help from the attendant who was just opening up, I jumped on the bike and rode less than a mile to an ATM. I jumped off the bike, left it running, got a balance inquiry with a time stamp of 6:07AM and I was good to go. Albeit 7 minutes behind.

I went over to Gaido’s Seafood to get a picture of the Giant Shrimp. No shrimp, but I knew exactly where it was supposed to be so I set the bike in place with my rally flag and took the picture.
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As I was leaving, a fellow rally rider on a Spyder pulled up behind me. No time to talk as I knew I was behind schedule. I needed to be at the next bonus in 1 hour.

As I rolled into Alvin, Tx on Hwy 6 @ Hwy 35 I saw a group of motorcycles meeting up for a ride. Perfect!!! I’d snag my Group Photo bonus early. Here’s the instructions for the bonus.

group

And here’s my photo

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Notice anything missing? How about the “on their motorcycles” part.  Doh!!!! No points for me on this one.

I arrived at the Brazos Bend Park bonus at 7:19, that was 14 minutes behind schedule. I bagged the bonus and took off.
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Fortunately I was on very familiar roads so I was able to make some time as I traveled the back roads of the area. I reached LaGrange and the Monument Hill State Park at 8:50. I had managed to catch up with my schedule.
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The next stop was Palmetto State Park near Lulling. I considered getting gas at the Bucees there but changed my mind due to the crazy number of people doing the same thing. I arrived at the park entrance at 9:39, 8 minutes ahead of schedule. I found a dry spot of vegetation that looked like it needed some irrigation and did my part to help out.

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From there it was a 185 mile stretch along I-10 and Hwy 90 to get to Bracketville. This is the part of riding where I really want cruise control. I struggled with the wind and my speed quite a bit. Not to mention cars in the left lane doing the posted speed limit or below. Really? Move over Texas!!!

I got my first fuel stop in Seguin, 7 minutes.

I had my head down in my GPS when I got to Brackville and almost missed the cannon. I took an extra minute to eat some beef jerky while I was there. I was still 8 minutes ahead of schedule even with the fuel stop.

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From there I back tracked to Uvalde where I picked up fuel stop #2, it’s not that I needed fuel, but my strategy was to get my last fuel stop in Bandera so this seemed like a convenient place to get it. The pump wouldn’t print the receipt so I lost a little time walking inside, 6 minutes.

I arrived at Garner State Park at 1:38PM, getting the photo was a little challenging because of the wind and the “lookie loos” who kept stopping to take a picture of me taking a picture. Really people???

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Riding to the next stop was great, FM1050 is a fun road. I did catch up with a Texas DPS officer but I guess when he realized I wasn’t some deranged maniac he pulled over to the shoulder and let me pass. As I did he gave me a big thumbs up. Needless to say, I didn’t wear his kindness and kept the speed to a moderate pace as he disappeared in my mirrors.

I arrived at the Lost Maples Café in Utopia at 1:54PM, snapped the photo and dashed to Bandera. I was 18 minutes ahead of schedule.

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I got to Bandera well ahead of schedule, as in 2:25PM. I was 35 minutes ahead of schedule considering I couldn’t get my Subway receipt until 3pm. I cruised through town looking for a gas station that wasn’t crowded, then circled back to the Shell station where I waited briefly before getting my 3rd fuel stop and the 200 point bonus. Then a ride across the street to the Subway.

OK, the Subway in Bandera is in no way a flagship store for the chain. In fact it’s probably on their “Needs improvement” list.  The girl behind the counter was no where to be found, I think she was hiding in back hoping no one would find her. At least 1/2 of the meats weren’t available and the list goes on. The kicker was that my receipt showed a time stamp 7 minutes against me. So instead of being able to get a second receipt at 3:01 for a bottle of water I was going to have to wait until 3:08. As it turned out, I didn’t get out of there until 3:15 because the girl went on her break despite the fact that I had asked her to please help me with a receipt precisely at 3pm.

I left Bandera in a blaze and arrived in Kerrville at 3:35PM (10 minutes ahead of schedule). I just pulled onto the shoulder and snapped the picture.

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I took the loop around Kerrville and got on I-10 in fantastic time. The South Llano Park bonus turned out to be easy as the sign was right there at the road. I bagged the bonus at 4:25PM (30 minutes ahead). I knew I was doing OK, time-wise.

The GPS found a nice short-cut from Junction up to Brady and I was able to get to my last bonus even quicker. I snapped the Brady Butane bonus at 5:20PM.

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With my bonuses collected I headed down the road to the Holiday Inn to get off the clock and start working on my rally log. I completed the rally at 5:25PM.

My final score was 2,850 points. I only lost the one bonus for the Group Photo because I failed to completely read the instructions. Otherwise I road a perfect rally. Based on points, I received 88% of the points I set out to get with only 1 mistake. It’s not a perfect rally but certainly an improvement from the last one.

When they announced the top 3 riders, I wasn’t surprised to hear they all rode more than 4,000 points. With a score of 2,850 I don’t know where I placed. But I’m happy with my rally this time, I planned a very achievable route, rode it, made only one mistake on a bonus and finished on time. That’ll work until next time.

Oh and I got to meet several great new friends whom I expect to see at future rallies.

UPDATE: So the results are in. It appears I tied for 13th place with a score of 2850. Missing the 400 photo bonus cost me 7 positions. There were a total of 32 finishers and 3 DNFs. So I accomplished my goal of finishing in the top half and I have something to work on for the next rally.

2012 Heart of Texas Rally Finisher List
1. #24 Mark Smith 4325
2. #12 Rex LeGalley 4150
3. #4 Ron Milleman 3825
4. #5 Ray Lea 3700
5. #6 Michael Hickman 3550
6. #17 Betsy Young 3500
7. #26 Nick Getzendanner 3200
8. #6 Dianne Fox 3120
8. #7 Bobby Fox 3120
9. #38 Steven Bracken 3050
10. #18 Al Landry and Liz Mrak 2925 1st 2up class
11. #22 Paul and Jenn Saccoccio 2920 2nd 2up class
12. #3 John R Smith 2900
13. #31 Stephanie May 2850
13. #34 Brian Walters 2850
14. #2 Glen Copeland 2750
14. #33 Jack Dannenberg 2750
15. #42 David and Son Trail 2625 3rd 2up class
16. #32 Andrew Tatton 2600
17. #23 Kendal Larson 2585
18. #5 Randy McCamey 2500
19. #43 Abe and Kathi Garcia 2400
20. #39 Connie Schluter 2385
21. #19 Chris Mixon 2375
22. #25 Marshall Harris 2320
22. #16 Jim Howard 2320
23. #40 Dave Schluter 2185
24. #28 Jim and Eva Patterson 2070
25. #36 Karl Zurcher 1800
26. #9 Donny Phillips 1650
27. #29 Mark “Rusty” Allen 1450
28. #30 Paul Partin 850

DNF
#27 Robert Hall
#35 Mike Getzendanner
#20 Kevin Sawatsky

My Route
HoT-route

1 comment:

Jim Howard said...

I stopped at the Subway in Ballinger. It was nothing to write home about for sure. Dirty, lot of flies.

It took 2 tries to get a receipt that said 'Subway' rather than 'Stripes', but I managed.