Tobacco Road Rally, November 2002

I ran my second long-distance motorcycle rally last weekend – the Tobacco Road Rally in North Carolina, hosted by veteran rally master Herbie Saint.  Herbie put on a super event, and more than 35 riders showed up for a beautiful weekend of riding.

 It started for me on Friday afternoon with a later-than-expected departure from Chesapeake, VA, and I made it to the hotel a little after 5 p.m.  I quickly checked in and received the instructions for the odometer check ride, which promptly placed me in the middle of rush hour traffic, where I sat for 15 minutes to turn left onto I-40.   Back from the run, I grabbed an extra room key from the front desk, unloaded my gear (I shared a room with Paul) and made it down to the rider’s meeting. 

 Jack Hornbeck, Neal Davis and Steve Dowdy were there, all from the Chesapeake area, and I wasn’t expecting Neal and Steve, so we spent a few minutes catching up, as it had been a few months since we’d ridden together.  Paul was sitting further up in the room, having gotten in a bit earlier than I did.  A little after 6 p.m. Herbie stepped to the front of the room and the tension mounted.  He passed out the rally packs with specific instructions NOT to open them.  Once everyone had a packet, he let us open them and we took a look.

 Unlike the Palmetto Ramble, my first rally experience, this rally was a photo rally – points were awarded based on photographic proof that you were at a certain location.  The proof included a rally flag with your rally number on it, to be handed out at the start Saturday morning.  Herbie’s knack for throwing riders for a loop was quickly evident, as there was a 4 a.m. or 5:30 a.m. start to choose from, the 5:30 a.m. start featuring a 750 point bonus!  With the top bonus in the rally at only 5,000 points, a 5:30 a.m. start was pretty rewarding.

 The mental game didn’t stop there.  The 30 or so rally bonus locations were divided between the eastern half of NC and western NC, with a 150 mile “dead zone” radius around the Raleigh rally headquarters where there were no bonus locations at all.  Clearly you had to go east or west, with huge bonus points on Ocracoke Island, accessible only by ferry, Cape Hatteras and in Corolla – the lighthouse trio.  The other big bonus was located at the summit of Mt. Mitchell, the highest point (no pun intended) in the eastern US, with 4,500 points.

 As I started thinking about ferry schedules, and my high level of comfort with the Outer Banks and the roads of Eastern NC, I quickly envisioned heading east… there were more big points there than anywhere else.  That’s when I saw the East-West Super Bonus – collect at least one bonus point from the east and one from the west, and you could TRIPPLE your single highest bonus point.  In other words, hitting the 5,000 point Ocracoke Island Lighthouse and the 52 point historic Salem bonus, would also give you a superbonus of 15,000  points, in addition to the 5,052 you would collect for visiting each site.

 Ugggg. 

 Herbie spent about a half hour going through the instructions, the finish (at a different location than the start, for extra confusion) and answering questions.  He also let us have access to a NC map, with the bonus location towns circled, which saved quite a bit of time in actually marking up my map to help with the route planning.

 Paul and I spent a few minutes chatting with other folks and returned to the room for a quick glance at everything.  We then headed over to a Crackle Barrel restaurant for some serious planning on the porch while waiting for a table.  I spent a few minutes putting point values on the map, and then settled down with the ferry schedule.  After several minutes I had the beginnings of a plan in mind – head out at 4 a.m. to Wilmington, work my way up the coast to Cedar Island and catch the 8:15 ferry to Ocracoke…. Then run up to the ferry to Hatteras, and make a big loop up the coast and back west, for a total of 8-9,000 points.  Not too shabby.

 Then Paul thankfully pointed out a flaw in my logic… the ferry schedule changes after November, and the first ferry was at 7 a.m., with the only other morning ferry at 9:30!  I looked at several other routes and it wasn’t until after dinner that I started looking west.  I jotted down several routes, with times to get to each location and point values and ended up with an easterly route, with and without the ferry, and a westerly route that would involve major miles – 240 or so just to Mt. Mitchell!  I then started looking seriously at the east-west super bonus.  When I realized it would top out at more than 700 miles, meaning a moving average of at least 51 mph, I started getting concerned… I only managed about 42 mph in the first rally I ran.  And though I knew I could have done much better then (it rained all day), I wasn’t convinced that I could make it work.  But it was clearly the route to take if you wanted to have big points and be in the running.

 By the time I went to bed at 11 or so, I had more or less decided on a 5:30 a.m. start, and a westerly loop that would let me pick up a fair number of points, and would not put me at the mercy of the ferry system, or an extremely tight schedule, where if I missed the ferry, I would be totally out of contention.  Even so, I filled out my route declaration sheet with a run to the west, then a return trip to the east.  I think I had myself confused and was just tired of thinking about all the options.

 Then 3:30 a.m. came and I woke up to the sounds of people getting bikes ready outside the hotel.  I spent about five minutes listening and getting wide awake, and then decided to go for it.  All the gusto – the east/west super bonus.  I jumped up, grabbed my gear, wished Paul good luck and headed out to get my bike ready, worried I’d left my jacket liner up in the room and relieved to find I was already wearing it.  I pulled up in the start line with about 5 minutes to spare, got my rally book signed and was ready to go.

 4 a.m. came and off we went, with the group getting immediately split up by a traffic light.  I was with four other riders.  One turned east and the other three and headed north/west on I-40.  We remained in sight of each other for the next hour or so, until well past Durham and some nasty construction.  Before long we turned up the speed a bit and an hour and a half after starting I needed to stop for gas.  When I stopped I switched to my winter gloves and had already been riding with my vest turned all the way up.  Back on the interstate the sky was starting to get lighter and the ink-black night turned an icy blue that felt even colder as I headed west.

 I reached Marion NC and headed into the mountains for my first bonus stop of the day – Little Switzerland.  I had decided on Little Switzerland since Mt. Mitchell didn’t open until 8 a.m. and it was still early.  This was a wonderful ride up a very tight and technical road – Rt. 226A.  At one point I was so turned around the GPS made it look like I was already past the village, but the dang road kept going up and up.  By now the sun was coming up and some of the turns were a challenge with my visor fogging up, the sun coming straight into my eyes and me trying to see my way around a tight outside turn with no guard rails.  But I was grinning the whole way and soon found the Post Office. 

 I was a bit surprised there was no one else there, and I quickly took my photo, after duct-taping my flag to the sign.  As I mounted back up I noticed a brown sign just up the road – an unexpected relief in the form of access to the Blue Ridge Parkway that didn’t show up on my map.  I was soon headed southwest on the parkway surrounded by the absolute beauty of the mountain coming to life under a rising sun, my passing tires waking up a rainbow of autumn color as I left a trail of blowing leaves in my wake.

The road was a bit wet, but I was the only one on it and within 25 minutes of fantastic riding I was rounding the last curve before the turn to Mt. Mitchell.  That’s when I tried to suck the seat up my rear – I found myself smack in the middle of a sheet of frost on the road, with no where to go but on down the road, or down on the road.  I eased off the throttle, avoided any sudden movements and within a hundred yards was back onto the sun-warmed pavement.  The experience left me a bit shaken, though, so I took the entrance road into Mt. Mitchell much slower – which paid off as two sets of deer crossed the road as I made my way in.

 I made it to the summit parking lot about 8:15 and found two other bikes there before me.  As I was getting my camera and flag together, two riders came down the trail.  We chatted for just a sec and I was headed up the trail.  Running the stairs at work really paid off here and I was back down in the parking lot in no time, thankful to be out of the wind.  I did snag a few extra photos from the summit, however.

 From Mt. Mitchell, I wound back up the parkway, then down Rt. 80 – another challenging road that passed by a high mountain lake that looked like something you’d find in Europe.  I’ll definitely be back.  When I got back out to the highway I had a decision.  It was about 9:30 and I could start my run back east, or head west to Ashville for the Biltmore Estate bonus.  Keeping my “go for it” attitude, I jumped back on I-40 West and blasted along, singing in my helmet and enjoying the mountain colors.  Traffic was heavy at Biltmore, but I noticed there were two left turn lanes, with everyone waiting in the left-most lane.  I scooted to the front, then used a commuter trick to get near the front of the line actually turning into the estate grounds, easily bypassing a 15 minute wait in traffic.  I was all smiles.

 I got the photo bonus, wondering what the people working in the gatehouse shop must have been thinking seeing me tape a yellow flag to their sign, take a photo, take the flag down and ride away.  The next few hours were rather boring – headed west on I-40.  I bypassed the Lenoir bonus, figuring it was well off the beaten path, and made it to Winston Salem needing my third tank of gas (I filled up after Mt. Mitchell).  I had thought the Old Salem bonus would be right off the highway.  It wasn’t.  And after an increasingly frustrating tour of the 35 mph roads in Salem, I found it, got my photo, visited the bathroom, ate a banana and some peanuts and got back on the road.  A few miles up the road I thankfully found an exit with gas and was good to go.

 With my MP3 player on I headed east/north on I-40, then north on I-85 to Durham, where I saw a near miss as two cars came close to side-swiping one another right in front of me.  I was pleased to find myself still very alert and was hard on the brakes before either car driver realized what was happening.

 My plan was to avoid the construction near Raleigh, skirt around Durham on I-85 and pick up Rt. 98 east to near Rocky Mount, for a run to my last bonus in Speed, NC.  Just before the exit I needed, I saw a sea of red brake lights ahead and quickly veered off to the exit on my right.  That put me smack in downtown Durham and I ran through several blocks of back roads before pulling off, finding Rt. 98 on the GPS and getting turned the right way.

 Sadly, while Rt. 98 was a straight shot east out of Durham, it was also made up of several miles of stop-and-go traffic, complete with traffic lights all timed to turn red as I approached, and plenty of beat-up cars spewing blue smoke.  I was starting to get worried.

 About 30 miles out of Durham I bagged Rt. 98 and took the first right that looked like it would take me all the way to Highway 64.  It did and after a close call with the exit (thank you BMW ABS) I was on familiar ground, headed toward Speed.  I reached the Post Office there about 3:45 p.m., and felt I had a comfortable amount of time to get back to Garner for the 5:30 deadline.  I stopped in Tarboro – on purpose – for gas and the beverage bonus, and then ran straight to the finish line, ending my rally at 5:01 p.m., 13 hours and one minute after I started, and 782 miles later.

 I had done it!  And boy was I proud of myself.  I knew I would have a fairly good score and hoped for a top-ten finish, to prove to myself that I could be competitive in this rally stuff.  Paul rolled in a bit after the 5:30 deadline and suffered penalty points for the delay, and Steve and Neal were there before me, having run the east/west bonus in reverse, but skipping the Biltmore bonus.

 I went in and had my score totaled and was very pleased at the 22,390 points I earned.  A while later the food arrived and we ate, tried not to fall asleep, and made some new friends.  Then Herbie started the countdown.  When he reached number 15 and my name hadn’t been called, I felt really good.  I knew I had ridden a competitive ride, and I was very happy.  When he got into the top ten and I still hadn’t been called, I was getting even more excited.  Surely I hadn’t done THAT well.  Alas, I was the fifth place finisher – a very pleasant place to be and a result of which I am extremely proud.  If you haven’t run one of these rallies, you wouldn’t understand.

 We headed back to the hotel a short time later, after congratulating the winners and hearing the winning route – a plan that hadn’t even occurred to me – I was very impressed!  Back to the hotel for a shower, a beer and some lies in the parking lot and I was out cold by 10ish.  The next morning Paul headed to DC after breakfast and Neal, Steve and I worked our way east on the back roads before getting separated near Murfreesboro.  I was home in time for lunch and despite plans to do some yard work, I crashed on the couch with a movie, getting up late in the day to wash the bike.

 All in all it was an extremely pleasant weekend and I look forward to more rallies in the future, including the possibility of moving up to a 24-hour rally.  Thanks to everyone who made it a great experience!

Tom Noffsinger
Chesapeake, VA
2002 BMW R1150R