Iron Butt Rally 2023 - a Personal Perspective

The IBR 2023 - Just what constitutes "too bloody dangerous?

Fate plays an important role in everyone's life. Despite our best laid plans and effort. 

I am therefore a firm believer in “the force”, fate, God or whatever you personally call it, assisting us with decisions and experiences. This is definitely true for the Iron Butt Rally (IBR) every two years, where some "good luck" is needed AND goes a long way.

In July, I had almost completed my blog on the Iron Butt Rally (IBR) within “Blogger” and accidently deleted the best of it, despite a previous save. Maybe I am not supposed to give my thoughts on the IBR in 2023? So, it has taken me four months to finally update it and record a few experiences and thoughts. 

Every single rider has their own wild and wonderful story – particularly for this year’s event. It was an Iron Butt classic of biblical proportons and "finishers" deserve all the accolades they receive. The efforts of the Comlys, Littles and Vooks stand out as very special, and I salute you couples for exceptional team work and sheer bloody-minded effort. And also for the super-stars who did not enter (or obtain an entry), and dont need the "competiton" but are just exceptional LDR's anyway - Greg Rice and Dan Simmonds come to mind amongst others.

Despite riding nearly 10,000 miles to 32 States, mine ended in 2023 with not being an official “finisher” as I did not achieve sufficient points for the "cut off" or mimimum score to qualify. I missed by a few points only – an issue that sits entirely with me. And yes, I could complain about not being scored for some bonuses, or not being allowed a score when the power was out to a town I stayed in (thereby lacking essential receipts) - but seriously, there is no point. What happened, happened, and I am one happy rider.

The Iron Butt Rally is the premier endurance motorcycing event in the world, for very good reasons. It is seriously tough and attracts the best and gnarliest riders from many nations. It runs in June across the USA and Canada, every second year since 1986, and is organised very capably by the Iron Butt Association, both management and volunteers. They are a well-oiled team, and this is a huge plus. They are also wonderful human beings which is an added bonus. The Iron Butt family is close, intense and global.

The IBR is essentially like a scavenger hunt with many "bonus" locations, that you choose yourself from a list, and obtain scores relative to the difficulty of reaching a location and obtaining the required bonus photo. 

The IBA have a particular recipe, well-honed over many years and top riders from around the globe clamour and bid for the 100 or so places on the rally, every second year. Many miss out, for a variety of reasons. Do not piss off the organisers un-necessarily, as you will be left off the list. Choose to be an active, positive part of the "Iron Butt Family" and you may be selected.

In 2023, the rally ran in three legs over 11 days, starting and finishing in the same location, being the Marriot Hotel at Pittsburgh airport. The first and second legs are for 60 and 64 hours and the last for an incredible 124 hours, basically allowing riders to reach any part of the USA or Canada and return in
time to the finish. 

Checkpoint 1 was at Tulsa OK and Checkpoint 2 was in Greenwood, Denver CO this year. Arriving on-time is critical, as there are negative points for arriving late, or a complete DNF (Did not finish) if you are more than two hours late. If you are in that category, you will be "out" until next time. 

Riders are required to carry a numbered rally flag (The size of a tea towel), and take photos of various bonuses across the country, plus acquire other items such as ferry receipts to prove that they visited each location. Some photos have special requirements such as you bike must also be in the picture - reading comprehension (of the "Rally Book") when tired, is actually critical. 

In addition, the points for each bonus vary according to the difficulty of reaching the location, or other

parameters set by the Rally Master, Jeff Earls. For this particular rally there were also points for completing a "Bingo Card" – which involved visiting any of 25 fast-food restaurants (some common and some very rare) for points, plus gaining more points for completing a line or column on the card. It was a clever added factor designed to play with your head, but impossible to ignore. Rally head-games are common and this was no exception.

In leg 3, there were also four “combo bonuses” where collecting two or three specific named boni, earned added credit – not easy when one is in LA and the other in New York City! For each of the three legs, the Rally Master set a minimum number of points for each leg. I went on to readily achieve these for the first two legs, but just missed out in Leg 3. So, despite riding almost the requisite miles, I am viewed as a “did not finish” for 2023. 

Having previously finished correctly in 2015 but not in 2017, I do have a coveted IBR member number (#517) of which there were only 647 prior to this rally. These "three digit numbers" are treasured like gold.

The rally started from Pittsburgh in fine style and good weather, with riders heading in every direction, as plotted by each person’s individual satellite tracker, such as a SPOT unit or Garmin InReach device. From the Rally master’s viewpoint, this is ideal as it makes it very competitive as anyone can watch the grouped tracks and work out if they are "with the mob" or riding as a true Maverick. It was soon to go pear-shaped as riders headed to every part of the USA, and the weather closed in.

From my personal perspective, this version of the IBR was particularly challenging for two reasons, both of which others may disagree with;

1. Firstly, the weather was particularly ugly this year, with overly oppressive heat in some states (TX, AZ and CA) up to 119 degrees F, heavy and torrential rain (and I mean that) for many riders over at least four US States, making ride and road conditions particularly treacherous. I also experienced significant cold for summer, down to 2 degrees C in the north.
2. Secondly, the Rally Master had reduced the number of bonuses considerably for each leg, making a ride to the more extreme locations (Breton Is, Key West, LA and Seattle, plus Yellow Knife in Canada), almost mandatory. This demanded some 1500-mile days with no bonuses, making it very difficult to use my “spiral in” strategy (aimed to collect a larger number of bonuses, of lesser points, but in total, competitive).  If you like to "twist and go" this rally was for you. And there were some out there riding at 100mph over vast distances. At speeds over 80 mph, there is no room for error.

My personal view (and note that it is indeed personal) is that this strategy was somewhat un-reasonable and also considerably more dangerous.  It removed a key element of "strategising" all the various options for the rally. This suits some riders, but me less so. Across the overall rally route that I took, I saw 17 significant car and truck accidents in pouring rain, with multiple vehicles, sometimes in massive pile-ups. One included over 100 vehicles with dozens of injuries, a vision that is rather hard to ride away from, when you are on "rally time".  I was held up for many hours in three of these. In one case in South Carolina, a blue car had tumbled end-over-end, and finished high in a tree in front of me, as a mangled mess. At the moment I was taking all of this in (and riding at full rally speed), a huge multi-blade helicopter landed on the roadway, right in front of me! It was time to take a different route. 

In the appalling weather, there were three major accidents involving competitors in the rally. In one case a female rider carrying her daughter as a pillion, ran into a deer at full speed. Self-inflating accident vests saved their lives, but the new BMW bike was a total write-off (and I mean scrap metal). They went to hospital, as did one other rider who veered into the emergency lane deliberately in the rain, and over-ran some road repair equipment. He is alive but spent some weeks in hospital. There were many smaller spills. No one was killed this year, which was a godsend, but that luck has run out on at least three previous occaisons.

On Leg 1, I had a very enjoyable time despite the weather, and rode the hills of Virginia, West Virgina, Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas and North and South Carolina to Tulsa, Oklahoma. I had focused on the "Bingo Card" for this leg, where a photo was required of your bike in front of the fast-food outlet, AND you needed to get a receipt for a drink or icecream (or whatever) from the store. The points were around 200 to 300 so low relatively, and in pouring rain, I missed one key Store, which I was to regret later as it did not appear in in other State. Doh. I also collected a number at the end of the leg in Tulsa for which I received no score, as I had the receipt but not my bike in the photo that I took. I offered to go back for the correct photos at 5am the next morning, provided my current receipts were ok. This was denied by the Rally Master, and as the stores opened at 10am, I was out of it - and out of the running it seemed.

Leg 2 was the "Hot Leg". I had decided to go to Texas. It was a great ride but brutal in the heat around El Paso, where staying alive was the key aim. I drank 9 litres of water that day, and soon headed into the cooler hills in Southern New Mexico, Arizona and then along the ridges into Moab, Utah. Wow. I stopped to take a few photos, after passing Jim (the eventual winner) going the other way. It was so beautiful in the wild, that I had to take a moment, and what a moment that was - unforgettable. There were some good bonuses in some very weird small towns. Some of the classic Bonuses include NMHA Hatch Chile in the town of Hatch NM, NMPT Pie Town in NM, and TXEP Best Tex Mex in the USA. Note that each bonus has a three or four letter "name" that has to be correctly listed on your scoring form - or you score Zilch.

At this point it should be said that there were three other bonues for each leg, comprising first a "Call In" bonus, (CALL2) by phone where you had to give a very specific message, plus a Tracking bonus TRK2, where your SPOT tracker MUST work for the whole leg, and finally a REST bonus (called REST2) for this leg, where you are forced to take some well earned sleep which I did do gratefully. At Checkpoint 2, riders were starting to frazzle, and many had back-up teams replacing tyres and fixing small and larger damage in the car park. You had to be there, to believe it. Camaraderie is exceptional at these times. 

Leg 3 was the Biggie in terms of time, and most riders covered some incredible distances. I decided to go to the cool north, of Minnesota then head East. I should have gone into Canada, but chose to ride through Wisconsin then back across the Mackinaw Bridge, but while that is truly spectacular, it requires a five-dollar bridge toll - ONLY in cash. I had some fun in the wrong lane with a pile of Quarters sorting this out while the toll lady thought I was a complete foreign nitwit - and she was not far wrong, as she wove back through a long line of moving trucks to her booth. 

Prior to the bridge crossing I was headed to a very large bonus score of 4847 points for MIMI - the task was to buy some fudge on Mackinac Island, but that required a ferry trip! No wonder there were good points. And I had a great ride with a fellow competitor and we both obtained the requisit score. I then headed south into indiana and Michigan, then into Pennsylvania to some delectable boni such as PAAR, the Road Kill Cafe for 3505 points. You kill it and they will cook it for you, in their Chowder. (No joke!)

My careful reading of the Rally Book showed me a true problem, which ws the final error that brought me undone - I was running out of Bonuses! (within a 2000 km ride). So I travelled around the local states, and even visited my favourite bonus hunting ground (again) in NY City! I love riding in New York and chased all the bonuses I could find. To get the last ones, I would need to ride into the very far south of Maryland, into the most wonderful country I had ridden in, and to scoop up bonuses like MDFC Old Saltys Blue Crab Diner, which is VERY remote but very beautiful. After this I returned north and stopped for a few hours mandatory REST3 in Hoopers Island. Disaster struck, as the power went out for 10 hours while I was there, and I could not get the necessary receipts for the full period. I lost a lot of points on this one, but Jeff allowed me a few on some earlier receipts. Achieving a "pass" score was getting tougher by the hour.

So this points disaster in MD, combined with the photo issue in Tulsa, put me out of the rally in terms of points. If I had made these, I would have had 2800 extra points over the minimum cut-off number. I had cut it too fine, and bad luck made a suitable score irretrievable. Further, any possibiltiy I had of making these up with other bonuses between NY and Pittsburgh was gone, as I had achieved every available bonus within reasonable riding distance from home base.  So be it.  I had ridden in 32 US States, and nearly 10,000 miles (14,000 for the full trip) and that was a true pleasure in itself. 

So what were the lessons I learned?

1. Your bike needs to be perfect. For you. As a foreigner, this is tough as you don't get to hone every last detail on a few smaller or shorter practise rallies before hand. This makes for a real challenge, if you fly into the USA a week in advance. You are behind the eight-ball to start. 
2. You need to be a genuinely skilled rider. Sure, everyone says that they are experienced, but in my view less than one-in-twenty social riders could do it. (I would be happy to justify this in detail to an interested rider) As an example, if you come from a country like Australia where you ride on the left normally, you need to adjust to the right side of the road AND your counter-steering responses better be "inate" or "automatic" on that side of the road, or you are going to die. 
3. It is as expensive AF. If you are on a tight budget, forget it. Standing under a freezing cold shower for an hour, while tearing up hundred-dollar bills would be cheaper and maybe more enjoyable. 
4. You need a great Team. The help I received from Martin and Bec, plus Ian in Australia and from Mike Myren with my bike preparation in MN, and of course, support from your immediate family, especially in my case from my wife, Sheryle. 
5. You MUST be mentally hard-core. If you dont "want it" then don't bother starting. This resilience is essential because shit happens. Like becoming soaked through and then riding for another 12 hours. Or breaking down in 120 degree heat and fixing the bike (one rider changed a tire with tools bought from a regular hardware store e.g. using G Clamps as bead-breakers). Or being robbed of your wallet in a Macca's - then just going out and riding on. Anything can happen - and does.
6. Lastly it is essential to be physically fit. You will have extreme sleep deprivation. If you cannot ride for more than 30 hours without any sleep, for one part of the rally, you will find it very challenging to compete. As I grow older, this is one element that is working against me. 

Having said all of that, it is totally addictive. I love it, and will never regret a minute in the IBR. 

And the list of wannabe applicants will be lined up, out-the-door for 2025. 

Go hard or go home. 

As IBR riders do - Bear Hugs. Olaf.