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News Snippits

• Rally winner Jim Owen said it was the most "challanging" rally he had ever ridden. On the first bonus went according to plan, and a key element to his success was his ability to be flexible and alter his plan from bonus to bonus.
• 6th place finisher Doug Chapman said it was the safest rally he's ever ridden, in part because he got so much rest during the event.
• The large number of DAYLIGHT ONLY bonuses contributed to everyone's getting a fairly significant amount of rest.
• 5th place finisher Art Montoya lives in Phonenix, and was able to spend both Sunday and Monday nights in his own home, in his own bed. He attributed this to the number of bonuses in the Grand Canyon area, and the fact that so many were daylight only.
• 11th place finisher Heidi Still surprised her husband by knocking on the door one evening. Bob said "What are you doing here"? And Heidi replied "I'm done for the day, there's nothing else I can get until tomorrow morning!"
• While headed north to the Chaco Cultural Center bonus, 4th place finisher Tom Sperry was confronted with "way beyond biblical" thunderstorms and reported lightning strikes hitting all around him with great frequency. Tom has ridden through tropical rainstorms in the south that dumped an inch an hour, but the rain he saw stopped him in his tracks.

Photo links

IBA honcho Ira Agins posted his photos of the Spank rally finish.

Photos from the Riders

Almost everyone encountered forest or grass fires. (Joe Antolick photo)

Greg Marbach snatches a few winks in a rest stop. (Joe Antolick photo)

For what Officer Friendly in Freedonia, AZ lacked in conversation skills
he more than made up for in scariness as one approached town from the West.
(Matt Watkins photo)

With a little paint, spackle, and thong-wearing chicks on sport bikes,
the Salton Sea could become a hopping place again. (Matt Watkins photo)

Ira Agins is a good egg — unlike the sweaty and raccoon-eyed riff raff that
rode all night from Joshua Tree to Santa Fe's Museum of International Folk Art.

Morning after the thunderstorm on the way to Gila Cliff Dwellings.
(Matt's favorite shot of the rally)

Local flooding was common in the normally desolate region, near Klagtoh, AZ. Supposedly only 1" deep, Matt made his FJR do it's best impersonation of a Dual Sport. It was more like 4" of water and was very slippery with wet clay clinging to the submerged pavement. (Matt Watkins photo)

An unflattering "dead cockroach" pose for an FJR. About 10 miles west of Whitehorse, NM on the least washed out of the 7 alleged roads the GPS called "Chaco Canyon Road". N35.8144, W107.9131. Combine having not seen another car for 75 miles, an owwie on his shin from dumping the bike, wishing Skert was around to show him how to lift the bike on the snot-slippery grade without his boots sliding downhill, and a serious question to how far it really was to the bonus (somewhere between 4.8 and 31 miles), Matt decided to bail out and head for Colorado. (Matt Watkins photo)

Lisa Stevens at White House ruins, Canyon de Chelly. (Tobie Stevens photo)

Jug Handle Arch. (Tobie Stevens photo)

Terry Lahman on "Highway 126" between Cuba, NM and Los Alamos, NM.
They turned back after a cager coming the other way said it got worse. (Lynda Lahman photo)

Sunrise at the Sherman Pass Vista, Saturday, 12-Aug-2006. (Lynda Lahman photo)

The trail to White House ruins, Canyon de Chelly. (Lisa Stevens photo)

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