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The Feast in the East is nearly a legendary rally on the East Coast. In its sixth iteration, the Feast was again a half day mini-rally: 11 hours and 600 miles. Bryan Moody outdid himself, bringing some of the true legends to the festivities: including the IBR bigwigs. The Feast comes complete with killer Carolina-style BBQ, or as B2 says, Q.
Before my planning sessions started, I had three goals:
Goal 1: Have Fun.
Goal 2: Finish, be anything but time-barred.
Goal 3: Finish Well. After my first rally, just doing well would be "enough"; hoping for a top 25.
The boni came out a week prior to the actual event, complete with MapBlast maplinks- eventually, I'll learn to read these better. That Saturday Evening, I started with the list and some paper maps. I located each boni on the individual maps or my gazeteers in some cases, then copied that info to a regional map, one state at a time. Once all 40+ boni were located, I took the "master map" and looked and looked and looked. Then out came the highlighter and calculator.
There were some natural "bundles" of points among the set: 3 just off I-77 on the east side, the Kentucky group, a bunch along the BRP in Carolina, 3 more along the BRP in Virginia and another group in the Greensboro area. I added these up to find out which group had the greatest point total (Kentucky), then it dawned on me, that I had no idea how far these places were. Once correcting that flaw, I immediately nixed the Kentucky group- it was 270 miles one-way to the farthest boni on roads of unknown quality. It looked like a suckers bet. It was very difficult to put together a high point route that didn't violate the 11 hours or 600 mile cap. The closest I could get was a monstrous 10,300+ route at 612 miles in 10:50- ughh. The old distance and scoring dilemma- what gets the most points per mile. Thanks Bryan.
Then a group of three just jumped off the page at me- mainly because I hadn't circled them as part of another set: Burkes Garden, Hinton, and Covington- all quadruple digit locations. These three were worth a whopping 4500 points, plus the 6-pack, phone call and gas receipts netted 6,300 points (enough to place in the high 20's it turns out). Tripmaker confirmed that this was a doable route, close to the mileage cap, but it would require riding a lot of miles, up I-77 and back. The good part, the route was almost entirely slab, so miles were the only "issue". As a big plus were the additional points near or on the actual return route, Hillsville, Tuggle Gap, and the I-77 bunch. I talked with my riding parner in crime, George Fetsko, on Sunday evening to firm up our plans. This was his first LD rally. See George figured if a dumbass like myself can win the very first rally he entered, he could do it too. Sorry I let you down George.
This was to serve as the"base route" (The Horkster actually ran this route minus Tuggle Gap and finished 2nd). Then came Wednesday morning's email from Bryan- the Burkes Garden location was available at 10am on. Quick phone call to George, OK we have 45 minutes to an hour to kill (we were going there first, Dale did it last) until the store opened- hey, we can get Blowing Rock, the TN gas receipt, and Abingdon now- an extra 1000 points and we fill the void. That settled, Bryan retracts his retraction and rather than refiguring it again, we just decide to go with it and let the chips fall where they may.
Friday afternoon, I check out the time-distance equation on a route variable (without consulting with B2) - Tuggle Gap and the shortcut to Hillsville while George rode into Burkes Garden. Once there at the Feast, I ride around greater Morganton to discover the best way around town, afterall we are heading northwest from the southeast side and I haven't been to Morganton before. George and I meet for dinner after check-in and discuss our respective discoveries. We move the "go for it" time up to 1pm for the "option loop" and 2:45 for just Hillsville. We have an extra 15 minutes built in (plus the penalty window) at the end to cover the six separate constuction zones on I-77 and other "intangibles" that I-81 always seems to throw in the hopper. George had figured 15 minutes one-way for the 5 miles to Burkes Garden from Va-61; he refered to it as a "technical ride". The funny thing to me, when he pulled in up there, a guy made a comment that George was the third PA license plate he'd seen in the last few minutes. Harley Trash and Badass had just been there- they pre-rode their entire route on Friday and would have been time barred by 3 hours if they would have tried on Saturday. Boy are they glad they tried it first. We suck back a few brews while watching Horkster trouble shoot Bob Held's fuel problem.
04:15 came awfully early, but a shower and something the Days Inn called "coffee" fixed that. To my surprise, my "twin" Eddie James is in the lobby of the motel, generally being a pain, so we must be related some how. He posed the axiom: "Rarely does a planned killer big point route win; there are usually too many things that can go wrong." As well as "If a Rallymaster makes it worth enough, a rider will do almost anything for the points."
At 05:15 was the riders meeting, distribution of the Rallybooks as George and I headed out at 05:44 and 05:45 respectively. Somewhere just north of Morganton, I pop my auxiliary fuse- of course that's my Widder, CB, ECM, and Aux light, all of which were "on" at the same time. I can deal without the other farkles, but not without my Widder. We press onto Blowing Rock. Lets just say the day didn't start real well as we wasted 20 minutes to locate this boni; actually, we were in the process of blowing it off cause we were buring valuable time when we came across it. Several other riders were there including Jim Frens (5th), he catches us near Mountain City, TN as we stop for our 100 pt gas receipt and to change that blown fuse- man I was cold on US-421; too bad, that was a cool motorcycle road- too cold for Goal 1. George, being the clever fella he is, gets the toy wildcard while I'm changing fuses.
We head next to Abington for Stop 3 and have gotten back half of the time we pissed away at Stop 1. Onward, the wick gets picked up, staying in that "gray zone" of speed enforcement, about 7 over. Somewhere outside of Tazewell, VA we miss the exit for VA-61 which takes us to Burkes Garden. At the top of the next ramp, we have two choices: go back or turn right and try to find it. We try to find it and a turn here and there later I'm on 61 looking for George. Once back up to speed, we zoom through the valley that 61 occupies- man what a cool road, just mile after mile of sweepers- Goal 1. At the turn for Burkes Garden, George pulls in front, afterall he's been here before and knows the corners better than I do. "Technical" my ass, we rode our pants off getting to the store in 8 minutes to a waiting Leon Begeman- more Goal 1. There were three other bikes coming out as we headed in, only two of which waved back.
Finally back on time, we blast out of Burkes Garden to 61 and up 77 for Hinton. Now we start seeing other ralliers going the other way; nahh they didn't do Covington- that's way too early. Finally, we see the Horkster just outside of Hinton; he mumbles something into the CB about pumkins (Wildcard 3). We pass the lower bridge into Hinton and I start wondering if the post office is off the lower bridge. Rather than waste time, I pull into the ranger's station to get directions to the post office and collect an easy 100 points for a National Park passport stamp. The Ranger says just head across the "upper" bridge and turn right, you'll find the post office in there somewhere as he pulls out a basket of NP stamps- three different stamps at one stop, very cool and an easy 600 points.
Hinton War Memorial, "who died in Lebanon" is answered and we head upto 64 for fuel, our WV gas receipt and call-in bonus in Green Sulpher Springs. East on 64 to Exit 10 and the Humpback Bridge, the oldest covered bridge in Virginia. Here we find an ST rider taking a few moments to just admire the bridge. I grew up in covered bridge country so they mostly look alike to me (this one was brown rather than the more PA Dutch traditional red), but it was indeed a very tranquil setting. George and I mount up, heading down 220 to 81 and the awaiting accident at Roanoke- see, I told you about 81. Just before exit 114, a pair of other ralliers (an ST and GS) go by and we stop for our VA gas receipt and 6-pack. Hillsville is still available to us, but the bears are really out in force along this stretch of 81. That is a tradition as we watch a Cherokee get nabbed after blowing by us at 90+. We pass the Hillsville boni exit at 14:50- nope, we agreed on 14:45, so it's on to the Finish Line and the 6 construction zones. (that "pass" costs us first and second we find out later- Monday morning quarterbacking)
None of these were bad at all. Between two of the zones, we see the same GS and ST parked in a drainage ditch - Parked. So we stop and get their attention- they give us the thumbs up- turns out it was a flat and Ahmet was right behind us. He's an expert at fixing flats. Everybody there made it back in time- whew!
As we turned onto I-40 for the final leg of our Rally, George just pulled away as I backed down. We had three-fourths of an hour for the last 46 miles to arrive. I figured he was trying to get just enough extra time to locate a "Q" joint for Wildcard 2 and the extra 175 points. Hit the exit ramp pull into the Texaco for $5 and my NC receipt. Ride the last 500 feet into the Parking lot to find the Rally check-in folks waiting for the "goods", mark our arrival times and which "goods" boni we had as the queue is starting to build at the scorers room. Goal 2 has been achieved. I flag down Bryan and thank him for an excellent ride- some of these roads are so cool. Goal 1 has been shared.
I double check my legibility as I copy the gas receipt info into Mr Freeze's gas log. Finally, it's my turn on the hot seat as Debbie reviews my stuff and I get my shirt- she says slyly "You rode with George, right? You're going to be here a while." I don't know if that's good or bad, but I know from chatting with the others in line, we were the only ones who got all three biggies- Horkster was way back in the line. All my boni are accepted and I kiss my wife as I head out to the throngs.
After all of the dust has settled, Harley Trash, BadAss (third and second last year), Jean and I drive up in the Escort to the Feast part of the Feast. Dinner is had as I park next to my new "brother" Eddie James. General bullshit is exchanged as the crowd gets ready for the results. Bryan starts off real rapidly going from 50's through 25, and my name isn't mention yet. Cool, Goal 3 a top 25. Bryan goes through the 20's then the teens, and I still don't here my name as others I know go by - Oh shit, did I screw the pooch somewhere? was it caught at the audit? Then 12, 11 and 10 goes to Jim "the wanderer" Young, BadAss and Harley Trash respectively- better than Jim, Harley Trash and BaddAss - a Top 10?- Better than the other 70+ riders who started - no friggin way.
Nine through six are read off, with lots of oohs and ahhs- some real good riders in that group. That leaves the top 5: I know Jim Frens (who we saw earlier in the day, and was pretty sure again at check-in) Horkster, George and I are still out there to post yet. Jim Frens #5, George #4, me by 0.8miles at #3- Number 3 against this field, no shit. The Horkster and his "conservative route" are next at #2 - wow what a recovery after GitD.
Then Tom Bowman with a massive 8,600+ point route - that's one great ride- is crowned "Beast of the Feast 2000" and the entry into the 2001 MD-20-20.
Back at the motel, much "adult" beverages are consumed as the post mortems and Monday morning quarterbacking starts. Sunday begins with the somber reminder of those we have lost and that we ride at the edge of our abilities sometimes. Jean and I have a nice breakfast before the "commute" home. I still must have been in rally-mode as I find myself home in time to watch a most of the early football games before heading up to get out Sadie dog from the kennels.
Thanks Bryan and his staff; like it or not, I will be back.
Thanks George, great ride guy. And congrats to Dale and Tom and everyone else who made it- I'm going back to some of those places- have to.