The Big Texas Rally October 18-21 2012

Our last rally of the season is normally The Void but this year a newcomer to the rally scene popped up - The Big Tex Rally. Coming so soon on the heels of The Void would normally have us pass this one up, but an old friend and former next door neighbor wanted to try his hand at a rally expressed interest, so we elected to do some October riding in Texas!

Chris has limited long distance experience and no rally experience. We were going to tackle a 36 hour long rally which was a big bite to chew on for a first timer. After agreeing to jump in, the rally went on the calendar! Our goal was to finish with a respectable standing.

Rally books arrived a couple of weeks in advance so route planning began early. After a 5^th place finish in The Void, we were ready for a bigger challenge. The Big Texas Rally did not disappoint. Bonus locations were all located in the State of Texas. Saying Texas is a big place is a dramatic understatement. 800 plus miles across east to west and north to south leaves a lot of room for bonus locations. And they were scattered across all four corners. There was a mandatory bonus location approximately 50 miles west of Del Rio which further complicated planning since it was only available from 8:00 AM to 5 PM. We got our route figured and everything loaded into the GPS’s and were ready to roll. Weather forecast for Texas was just about perfect.

Our start location was Denison about 620 miles from home. We opted to leave Wednesday afternoon and break the trip into two parts. Monroe, LA was our stop for Wednesday night and after stopping for supper in Vicksburg, hopped back on the interstate for the last 100 miles or so. As soon as we crossed the Mississippi, the NEXRAD radar on the GPS lit up like a Christmas tree with severe storms in central LA. There were severe storm cells north of the interstate and one centered over Monroe. We were treated to a tremendous light show as lightning lit up the night sky in a display of nature’s fireworks. We hit rain about 20 miles out of Monroe, but lucky for us were able to avoid the worst of the storm. I hate riding at night in the rain!

It was an easy ride on into Denison on Thursday and after meeting Chris at the hotel, spending several hours trying to get all the bonus locations loaded into his GPS on the Gold Wing, we had a great steak dinner and settled in for the night.

Let’s talk for a minute about the rally structure. There were four different start locations, Orange, Denison, Anthony, and Dumas which are in the extreme corners of the state. All start locations had the same mandatory bonus in Langtry, TX. All riders were scored the same regardless of start location. In my opinion, the playing field is never level when you have riders starting from different locations. North and east starters have much more congestion to deal with while western starters have much more open roads and even higher speed limits on West Texas interstates. With that said, the winner did start from Denison!

Start was 6:00 AM Friday with rider’s meeting at 5:30. After dealing with paperwork and the admonishment to ride safely, the Rallymaster handed out an additional package of bonus locations worth major, major points. To include any of these bonus locations would have required a complete re-route for us, we opted to follow old words of wisdom - Plan your ride, Ride your plan. Remember our goal was to complete the ride with a respectable finish.

In planning, I considered the much higher speed limits on Texas secondary roads. Most rural roads have speed limits of 70 with interstate at 75-85. We had to manage an average of 45.5 mph for the duration of the rally. It was going to be necessary to go through Houston, planned for 3 PM before rush hour - no problem. This would bite us in the ass later!

6:00 AM and off we go into the dark. Texas has a very healthy deer (forest rat) population so we had to be a bit careful in the inky blackness of northeast Texas. First bonus is in Paris, TX which was 67 miles and a planned arrival of 7:01. We arrived at 7:10, snapped a quick picture and were soon away. We are already behind schedule.



Next was a historical marker for the town of Old Boston. We had scouted this one on the way in and knew exactly where it was. Planned arrival - 8:24, actual 8:35 at 142 miles. We haven’t lost anymore ground at least.  It was a bit windy so Barbara improvised flag holding!

Now off to Shady Glade Café on Caddo Lake. We had to find the fireworks donation box, donate a dollar and get a coozie or key fob. I stormed in with all the gear on, got strange looks from the patrons, threw a dollar in and grabbed my coozie. We obviously were the first riders to arrive. Scheduled arrival was 9:54 and we arrived at 9:54 210 miles into the ride. Woohoo….back on schedule.

Things went south from here on and it was purely my own routing fault. At the last minute, I decided to grab a bonus in Nacogdoches worth 1454 points, which really was a minor detour. What I failed to do was adjust arrival times for all subsequent bonuses. Duhhhhh……now we really are going to be behind! We had to find a marker about the Marx Brothers and after circling the block a time or two, we finally stopped and walked about to locate the marker. Found it and hit the road. 309 miles in and again way behind!

Next was Hemphill, TX and a monument to the crew of the Shuttle Columbia. When the Columbia disintegrated on re-entry February 1, 2003, the debris field stretched from Dallas east through Nacogdoches “(the heaviest concentration of debris and human remains)and on into Louisiana. We had to photograph the monument to the crew. Time is now 1:15 PM 370 miles into the rally. We are now over 1 hour behind schedule with the foray to Nacogdoches!



A large point bonus in a cemetery was next. I hate cemetery bonuses since you never know exactly where you will find what you are looking for. The grave of L.B. Easley with a large stone rabbit at the foot of the grave was the bonus. It was of course was on the very back of the graveyard! Luckily it didn’t take us too long to find it, take our pictures and head out. Time is 1:28 PM scheduled for 12:19 377 miles in.

The downhill slide really began as we headed to Houston and another pretty high point bonus. We should have arrived at 3:15 before rush hour instead we found Artwork and the giant head of Teddy Roosevelt at 5:01. 546 miles in and over 1:45 minutes behind.

We got back on the interstate only to find traffic at either a stop or inching along. This continued for what seemed an eternity until we decided to get off and run the access roads. Lots of stoplights but we were still moving much faster than the traffic on the interstate. Plus it let us get some cool air moving rather than melting in the almost 90 degree heat and exhaust fumes of the interstate. We stayed on access roads until it appeared traffic was moving at a brisk pace on the interstate. Now we are almost 3 hours behind!

We dropped bonuses in Goliad, TX electing to make up some time running the interstate to San Antonio. Nearing San Antonio, we stopped at a favorite place - Buccee’s. This is a gas stop in the middle of nowhere that rivals Wal-Mart in size with probably 40 gas pumps and a store that sells everything from t-shirts to fresh beef jerky. They are only found in Texas and if you ever get a chance you really should stop. It really is an amazing oasis in the middle of nowhere and it was hopping! We had a sandwich, took care of bodily functions, refueled and were on our way.

Texas is renowned for honky-tonks and our next stop was John T. Floores Country Store which has been around for over 60 years and is considered the musical birthplace of Willie Nelson. Google it to found out more. The first hint of trouble was when we saw cars parked alongside the road and people walking for well over a mile before getting to the joint. Old Town Helotes, TX is also filled with other entertainment and restaurants! The bonus was to get inside and take a photo of the sign that says “$100 fine for fighting”. There was no place to park, a huge line of people trying to get in, bands playing, police cars everywhere. We pondered a moment, looked at the mob, and decided to get the hell out of Dodge. In all fairness, the bonus was captured by a couple of other riders!  Another lost bonus……but we still are over 2 hours behind schedule and lots of night riding to do before starting our rest bonus.
Off to the fabled town of Luckenbach, Texas - population 2 - another famed Texas honky-tonk. I had been there before so knew what it looked it and how it was laid out. It was hopping as well but there was ample motorcycle parking. We parked, had to avoid some weird fellow who wanted to chat, and headed off to find our bonus - an Alaska license plate on the wall of the rest rooms. Thank goodness for Google as we had found it online and knew where to look. There are hundreds of old license plates! Time is now 10:30 PM and we are 853 miles into the ride. 2 hours behind even after dropping the Goliad bonuses.

We picked our way through the abundant deer population to Kerrville which was our scheduled rest location. Quick gas receipt at 11:15 PM and off to bed for a quick rest break. Mandatory rest was 4 hours up to a maximum of 8 at 15 points per minute. We had planned 6 but cut it down to 5 to try and make up some lost time. We were back on the road at 4:16. And it is jet black in the Hill Country and every deer in the world seemed to be out grazing alongside the road.

We dropped 2 bonuses enroute to the mandatory in an effort to make up time.

In order to finish Day 2 of our route, we needed to be at the mandatory bonus in Langtry pretty close to opening time at 8:00 AM. The CB staying alive with deer warnings every couple of minutes it seemed which definitely slowed our pace. No traffic was present so the bright HID’s stayed on. At some point along the road, we rounded a curve and saw 6 bright shining eyes in the middle of the road. A family of raccoons were sauntering down the middle of the road. We saw them….they saw us and they panicked. I had chosen to go past them on the right, but Junior was suicidal and decided to break left at the last minute. He ran right into the left side of the bike and hit me right about the shift lever, footpeg and my BOOT! KERTHUMP! Chris managed to avoid them as the one in the middle stayed the course.

I don’t know what happened to Junior as I was busy trying to see if my left foot still worked and whether or not I had a footpeg and shift lever. Everything was present and still operational but I had visions of raccoon innards all over the bike. When we stopped there was no evidence of the collision and maybe Junior just has a really bad headache!

We made it into Del Rio for gas and a quick bite of breakfast at Burger King. Off to the mandatory bonus!

Our next bonus is a Texas Rest Area and museum for Judge Roy Bean - Law West of the Pecos. Pretty neat place to explore if you have time…..we’ve been there before! The Rio Grand closely follows Hwy 90 out of Del Rio and the Border Patrol was in abundance. We zipped through the checkpoint without a problem and made good time on these wide open high speed Texas backroads. Scheduled arrival 8:02 and we hit it at 8:06! We are now 1106 miles into the rally with 12 hours left to go.

We quickly stopped on the way back for a National Park Stamp at the Amistad National Recreation area.

We didn’t stop for gas on the way out - an almost fatal mistake. This is West Texas and gas stops are sometimes few and far between. We had no worries since our aux tank was full, but Chris was running just on the stock Gold Wing tank. The high speed run to Langtry had cost us some fuel mileage. We crossed our fingers, held the speed down a bit and made it to the next gas stop. Chris had less than ½ gallon left! Whew!

Onward to Fort McKavet, a Texas Historical Site where we had to take a picture of the ruins of the Commanding Officers Quarters. Scheduled arrival 10:54 actual arrival 11:04 - not too far behind considering a gas stop and slower speeds trying to conserve fuel. 1296 miles in now.

Billy the Kid’s grave in Hamilton, TX is next. Oh boy, another cemetery! Google let us see exactly what we were looking for, the coordinates were right next to the grave. Zip in….zip out. 1458 miles and only 18 minutes behind. We almost have this one in the books.

Now it is off to BMW of North Dallas to take a picture of Rupert Austin holding our rally flag. Dallas traffic is horrible even on Saturday afternoon. We pulled in and were directed back to the service area. When we walked in and loudly asked who was Rupert Austin, everyone simply pointed. This is Rupert! Time is 4:27 PM and we are actually now 17 minutes ahead of schedule. 1603 miles.

One last bonus to grab and that was the Texas Theater where Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended after the assassination of JFK. We had to find and photograph the poster of the movie that was playing that infamous afternoon - “War is Hell”. A parking space was right in front and a nice lady inside directed us upstairs where the poster was located. Other riders related they had to search for it - we were just lucky! Time is 5:15 1627 miles!

Straight to the finish line we go only 11 miles away and we have 45 minutes to make it.
We checked in at the finish at 5:30PM with 30 minutes to spare. Total mileage 1637 miles in less than 36 hours - we had finished a Bun Burner 1500 while rallying with a 5 hour rest break. Not too shabby!  The only decent stretch of interstate we rode was from Houston to San Antonio.  Everything else was secondary roads!

Final standing put is in the middle of the pack and the 5^th highest mileage ridden. It damn sure wasn’t the most efficient route, but we had accomplished the initial goal - a respectable finish.  Barbara and I didn't leave any points at the scoring table.  Crhis however, somehow forgot to claim a bonus which even with an identical ride left him one place below us.   Chris is now broken in with a good rally under his belt and a possible BB1550 certification. Not a bad start for a prospective new rally rider!

The ride home Sunday was simply an uneventful 600 mile drone down the interstate.
Last rally of the season with no big rides on the horizon until spring when we will head to Jacksonville for the annual IBA Pizza Party. Next year could be a busy riding year! We are of course headed to Cape Fear in April, the last Utah 1088 in June, maybe the Big Sky Rally in August. We shall see.

Ride safe!