Cape Fear Rally - Wrap up

The Cape Fear Rally pack arrived on 24 April around 1800 (6PM). There were approximately 100 bonus locations to choose from plus some wild cards that were relatively easy to satisfy (make a donation to one or two charities, put the CF sticker on your bike, maintain a fuel log, take pictures of animal rescue/shelter establishments, sleep, beverage six pack of your choice, etc). I didn’t have a lot of time to look at the Rally Pack that night after I went through and manually entered all the bonus locations with their Code, Points, Lat and Long. In the Cape Fear Rally you only get the bonus locations in a PDF file. Other rallies give you this information in separate files so you can get to route planning a lot sooner. By the end of the evening, I had two routes that I could not expect to complete on time and would DNF…. Great. On Friday morning, 25 April, I headed out to ride to my friend Rick Germain’s house in the Rochester area of New York. I arrived at Rick’s in the late afternoon and we both got busy with finalizing our route prep. He finished before me. I tend to agonize over things too much. After arriving at Rick’s, and thinking about the route and my choices on the way up, I abandoned the previous two routes and focused on a more north to south route but it would have to take me into the National Capital region to score a trifecta bonus for successfully capturing a bonus in Baltimore, DC and Northern Virginia. Coming in to score the first bonus in Baltimore I was about 20 minutes ahead of schedule. When I left the third location in N. VA and heading towards I-95, I was 45 minutes behind schedule. The DC area is just a big time suck and it didn’t help that it was raining, and lots of standing water, and traffic, and all that. If I never have to ride a motorcycle in that area again it will be too soon. Of course I know that is fantasy. I took the full 6-hour rest bonus in Emporia, VA. It was weird being so close to home and spending the night in a hotel. I was supposed to hold up in Wilson, NC for the rest bonus but I was just too far behind schedule. I decided to take my rest bonus at 0045 and get on the road at 0645 (first light) rather than trying to stay on schedule with riding at night until around 0200 when I would get to Wilson. Changing the hours of the rest bonus worked in my favor. It was much easier to address the remaining bonus locations in the morning when the sun was out than at night. Near the end of the rally, I had to toss out a couple of bonuses at the end in order to make it back to Wilmington, NC in time. You were a Did Not Finish (DNF) if you weren’t check in before the end of the 29th hour. So, if you got your start receipt at 1000 the previous day, you had to be back to Rally HQ by no later than 14:59:59. Once second more and you are a DNF. I pumped gas for my start receipt at 0954. I ended the rally at 1453. I was working the last minute hard and barely made it back. It took me several minutes to open my rally receipts and see when I pumped gas because I thought I had DNF’d. After it was all said and done, raining and nasty weather on Friday, very nice day on Saturday, a dash to the finish leaving points behind, coming in with about 2/10s of gallon of fuel left (not able to stop for gas because there was no time), and finish with less than 60 seconds to go… I guess I did all right because I got second place for the Naples, New York starters. Overall, a very good rally. I had a lot of fun even though it was stressful at times when “the plan” starts circling the drain. The rally staff are great and very friendly. Great atmosphere. Good company. Great food. How can you go wrong?