I can't be there, and would love to see some photos. Anyone?

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Click here http://picasaweb.google.com/coast.rider/2008MN1K

Thanks Rick! I note a complete lack of sidecars. How sad. Though a Canned Ham Spider with a sidecar would be kind of funny, eh.

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There was one maybe two. I just didn't get pics of them.

Kolstad & Shifflet are running the Guzzi hack, and Senty & Winterer are piloting White Trash, the Wing/EML rig.

I can report that two riders have just bagged the Atchison, KS bonus (after cleaning up in southwest MN, IA and NE), and are starting to head back. I smell a possible winning ride in the making. It seems most everyone is doing the SW thing.

Unless somebody believed enough, despite the flooding and alleged limited points, to go southeast. Everybody seems to think I was wrong; perhaps so. Still.

Problems with the Malcolm X bonus have been reported and noted; one rider went down early but is fine and will not DNF. Two of our Michigan friends are out due to a BMW clutch failure - will post photo later of the BMW pilot riding bitch on friend's Wing. Bubba reporting problems with his V Strom but he vows no DNF.

Where are Eddie and Lurleen? They were just about the last to leave. Will they score wood or be also-rans?

The word from the road...

From the sound of it, darkness and scant directions are rendering the International Forest of Friendship rather difficult. I found it so myself when I was there after dark back in March.

Really, it's there. And it is the single biggest point value bonus for a reason.

This pair passed me on I-35 southbound about 1/2 hour after rally start.  This is the rig known as "White Trash", with owner Mike Senty at the helm, and Jim Winterer furiously crunching bonus permutations on a laptop in the car.  Or maybe he just spilled his coffee...

  

Here was the options (minus the Coons Bonus):



I picked all the wrong ones He He He!!

....during and finish.

http://twofastdogs.smugmug.com/gallery/5233276_SuMpv#P-1-20

The road out of Bluffton:



Enjoy.
-K