Bonzi Results

I'll post more information later, but this is a quick overview. I somehow won third place in my division ("Experianced") at the Bonzai. I was the last one out of the barn (I need more practice at planning routes and town identification), had a 1000 point time penalty (for arriving at 7:01 PM at the end), and made more then one mistake, but had one heck of ride. I spent all day riding and hunting bonuses, but only road about 402 miles according to my GPSl. I only took one break which was in Lansing at about 4PM to drink, nibble and do some last minute routing changes and checks. During the day I saw some of the best roads I have ever seen and which I'm hoping to rediscover with some of the neat places next weekend at the Hiawatha Rally in Money Creek.

One of my biggest rally mistakes was going for the "Fire Tower" combo. To get that combo you had to get information of the base plates of two different fire towers, one near Elba, Minnesota and the other was the Yellow River tower south of Lansing, Iowa. The combo was worth 850 points, the fire tower in Elba was worth 650 points (plus an extra 100 points to climb the actual tower and get a photo), and the fire tower near Lansing was worth 500 points or so. What I didn't realize was the there was 636 steps to climb on foot just to get to the tower at Elba and that the fire tower road near Lansing was dangerous even on "Pig" (would have been easier on Strom). I passed a guy on the Gold Wing going up the hill and another on a cruiser going down. The steps at Elba were physically demanding. I think I spent about 45 minutes on that bonus all told. I also did some bonuses near Lanesboro, Peterson and Houston which I should have passed by to get bigger bonuses down south of Lansing.


Dave W. and I had to get up at 4 AM and leave the campground in Caledonia by 4:30 to make it on time. Here I am checking in on Sunday at 5:45 AM with Brant "DaJuice" giving him my odometer reading. Packets were handed out at 6 AM. The earliest allowed departure time from Rally HQ was 7 PM. I took a 30 minute rest bonus at 7 AM to continue planning. I had problems with my GPS flash card and had to load my maps manually on to the GPS using my laptop (which is a pain with my RAM mount). I didn't hit the road until nearly 8:30. I think Phil Becker the overall winner left just a few minutes before me. It really does pay to plan well.


Here I am with Rally Master Brian Johnson. This was Brian's first year as rally master. He did an awesome job.

I'll get some more info and photos loaded later.