Butt Lite IX sold out in hours.  Then a fairly long waiting list was born.  Based on our past rallies, we expected an attrition rate of about 20%.  And then a strange thing happened.

Hardly anyone dropped out.  There was the initial spattering of “I’m out, you’re in”.  But then it was eerily quiet.   After we opened up for a few 2019 Iron Butt Rookies and absorbed the rest of our waiting list, we had reached an all time high number of riders on the roster.

And then last week the flood gates opened.  I could barely keep up with the withdrawals.  And it wasn’t just the riders, we were losing a few volunteers too.

There were the typical reasons – work and family.  As I’ve written previously, life happens and we can’t always fit in a six day motorcycle rally that requires a few days tacked on to the front and maybe a couple tacked on the back.

But this rally has had a rather large number of rather strange reasons for people to drop out.

One rider had a mild heart attack.  She is, thankfully, recovering well.  Another had an accident on his way to the start and broke his collar bone.  One volunteer was feeling ill as he made his way to Lexington and at the urging of his wife, stopped in an ER and found out he had pneumonia.  But the winner, up to that point, was a volunteer who had to have a toe amputated!  We thought it couldn’t get any stranger than that.

But leave it to Butt Lite 7 winner, Josh Mountain, to out do them all.  In typical Josh fashion, his reason for not making it to Lexington was totally over the top.

Apparently, he was bored in the week leading up to the start of Butt Lite so he decided to enter the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.  And in his words, “I keep winning!”  Who can say no to the chance of winning 8.8 million dollars?  Winning Butt Lite gets you a really nice glass trophy (that you have to figure out how to get home without breaking) and an entry in the Iron Butt Rally.  Frankly, I’d be playing poker too, if I was any good at it.

So Josh may not win Butt Lite this year but he wins the contest for best reason to miss the start.  And his strategy to throw off his competitors in poker just validates the nick name he has earned in the long distance rallying world – Nut Job.

Line ’em up for registration. These guys must have the same hair stylist.

Lyle, taking charge!

What WOULD Eddie do??

Tech inspections, papers please.

David isn’t quite sure.

Connie and Brant put together a great new rider meeting!

The new riders were all ears.

A not so new rider sharing some sage advice. 

 

All the photos from today can be seen here.

Wow! This is a lot nicer than the Two Rivers Hotel and Saloon in Niobrara for Butt Lite IIII. Riders are beginning to trickle in!

…and spa!

Golf Club and Mansion??

Plantation backdrop!

The Lahman’s have arrived. The official start of Butt Lite is when the first riders show up. There is bourbon & butter cake to die for.

More history of the Butt Lite rally, this time Butt Lite IIII, from 2006.

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Trophies are ready! To the Victor will go the spoils!

It’s July!!!

Well, here we are again.  The ninth Butt Lite.  The fourth put together by the team of Bakker, Erbes & Smith.  I suppose sounding a bit like a law firm is apropos.

Just like the others before it, the planning for this rally began immediately following the last.  And just like the others we have exchanged thousands of emails, traveled thousands of miles and written thousands of words to get us to this.

An event like few others.  For our participants it is six days spent traversing parts unknown via a motorcycle for no other reason than to do it.  For the winner there may be a bit of glory but only from the very few who follow such things.  That person will be guaranteed a spot in the 2019 Iron Butt Rally.  And there IS a nice trophy for the top 10 finishers.  But we don’t do this for any of that.  We do it because we are Strange People in a Strange Land.

There is nothing else quite like riding a motorcycle for about 20 hours a day in every type of weather, on every type of road, in large cities and forgotten, empty small towns.  This isn’t a race.  It is an exercise in strategy, planning and managing your skills and expectations.  Not too many people think this is fun.

But we do.  It’s fun riding in it and it’s fun planning it.  That’s why we keep doing it.

Because it’s strange and many of our friends and family simply don’t get it.  And that makes us like it even more.

As of this writing we have 104 riders.  Attrition has been slow in coming but recent weeks have seen an uptick.  Life happens and sometimes walking away from it for seven or eight full days of total immersion in the task at hand is a luxury we can’t always afford.

Each of the four Butt Lites that we’ve been rally masters have been very bitter-sweet.  And this one will be too.  The three of us are always, always aware of the big shoes we attempt to fill.  Every bonus, every tweak of a rule, every detail, carries with it the memory of the man who brought us together.  And he is always with us.  Guiding us to places that some won’t understand.  Weaving humor, anger, and awe into every page of the rally book.  We hope, as we always do, that this effort would make him proud.

So, if you will be watching us from your computer, make sure you follow this blog closely.  All the good stuff will be here.

Thanks for joining us on our strange journey.

 

This question was asked on the Team Strange Discussion Board, and is worth clarifying now rather than just before (or during) the rally.

Question: The rules say that cameras are permitted. They do not say that phones are not permitted. If I take my bonus photos with my phone, and transfer them to an SDHC card pre-scoring, does this properly satisfy the rules of photo submission?

Answer: Uniform Rule 11 K says “All digital photos submitted for scoring shall be in the format as originally recorded by the camera, with no post-processing, editing, manipulation, alteration, cropping, resizing, or enhancement applied.”
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Some throwback to Butt Lite IIIII and life in the Rally Van in 2008.

First thing to know is that the Rally Van also competes in the rally but it’s a terrible cheater. The Rally Van collects points for visiting bonuses, for driving near bonuses, for visiting bonuses that aren’t bonuses but should be, and for visiting bonuses from other rallies. All this cheating means that by the end of the rally, the Rally Van usually gets kicked out of the rally.

First bonus was the Forevertron in Prairie du Sac WI, which has been a bonus on many rallies. Points awarded.

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