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Race Through America 2004

raceamerica

By raceamerica
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raceamerica

raceamerica

Posted
Posted (edited)

Back in Apr 2003 cacher regoarrarr brought up the idea of a tracking system or race for travel bugs with the goal of traveling the fifty United States of America. This thread is to announce that the race is ready to go.

 

A large number of travel bugs have the goal of traveling the 48 or 50 states of the United States of America, so this is a race to see who can do it fastest, etc, well, get closest, in about a year. The travel bug racers will start from where ever they are at the beginning of the race (1 May 2004) and the race will end 4 July 2005, Independence Day.

 

First step is a logo contest to put something better across the top the race web page. The contest will end 18 Apr. The winning designer will receive 2 TB tags and a certificate as the award.

 

Please let non-forum cachers know about the race.

 

The full page with rules, etc can be found at: http://users.rcn.com/brad.32/raceamerica/rta.htm

 

It's not etched in stone until the race starts...

 

Edited to change race URL.

Edited by raceamerica
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Snoogans

+Snoogans

Posted
Posted

I'll probably enter at least one if not three or more.... Let's see if there is any other interest....

 

I think you should learn from Cannonball Run though. You're fooling yourself if you think other entrants will leave their own bugs alone let alone all the others. Have as few rules as you, and others, can possibly stand, or obey. Fewer disputes that way......

 

Sn :lol::lol: gans

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raceamerica

raceamerica

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The race web page now has first draft of the awards. Added a button pin for each of the entrants:

 

"When the race starts, each racer will receive a Bumble Buttons button with the winning race logo design on it."

 

... assuming that can be done.

 

I figure those are more useful than paper entry certificates.

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raceamerica

raceamerica

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Okay, it's the 18th, the deadline for submitting logo designs. I doubt anyone else is going to submit one, so I set up the voting now.

 

Because there are only a few, I moved up the date for the voting and I didn't set up a special voting system, just email. Voting will end in a week, 25 Apr, which gives people time to add the logo to their bug instruction tags. The winning designer will receive 2 TB tags, a certificate as the award, and have their logo associated with this year's race.

 

Please go to the web page and click on the one you would like to vote for and send a vote email for that design.

 

http://users.rcn.com/brad.32/raceamerica/rta.htm

 

Thank you.

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raceamerica

raceamerica

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How many racers are registered thus far?

i.e. How tough is the competition? :(

There are eight racers so far.

 

The main race page was a link to the racer page:

http://users.rcn.com/brad.32/raceamerica/rtaracers.htm

 

If your racer is not on the page, that's a problem. Please let me know.

 

... perhaps I need to re-emphasize things on the web page. The racer link IS a bit hidden now because of "all" the big logos. That part will change after the "official" logo is decided. (Please email comments on the web page if you have any.)

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raceamerica

raceamerica

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Posted

Right. The bugs can be in action before the beginning of the race, but the progress tracking will be from where ever the racers are at the beginning of the race.

 

If a racer is in a cache at the beginning of the race, 1 May, then it will "immediately" get credit for that state and its race mileage will start from that cache.

 

If a racer is not in a cache, then it will start accumulating states, distance, and caches when it is placed.

 

... I'll add this to the race web page later today.

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KSWader

+KSWader

Posted
Posted

I got the 2 entries from my cub scout pack in yesterday! We are going to use the race to work on map reading and geography. The boys are excited so hopefully we will get a lot of photos. They entered:

 

Scouting the 50 States

Dude! Where's my car!

 

I do not know if this has been discussed, but are we able to grab our own travel bugs once they are initally placed in a cache and move them along? The reason I am asking is that we are in a rural area and often times, travel bugs will sit for 2 or more weeks before the caches are even visited. I will be going on a long trip from Kansas to Montana on May 23 and wonder if we could take one of our bugs in the race on the trip if it is still sitting in the area and leave in Montana or South Dakota?

 

I really want these bugs to move for the 2 scouts that own them!

 

Ed

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raceamerica

raceamerica

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Back at the beginning of this thread Snoogans pointed out that fewer rules are better, so the rule about that was deleted.

 

After a few emails with one of the racer owners, the only real rule was hopefully clarified: "Racers may not be mailed, shipped, transported, etc between cachers or muggles after the race starts, but must be carried from cache to cache by cachers. Racers can be placed multiple times by the same cacher."

 

The rest of the "rules" are just logistics.

 

Because there is no launch event, there's not much point in having a strict start date, so I might as well make it flexible. TRY to get the reference number in by 1 May though. In fairness to the racers that are on time, there will be no handicapping: late entrants will start behind the ones that were on time, will have to try to catch up, will not be eligible for the creative racer contest, and I may run out of race buttons.

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raceamerica

raceamerica

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We are going to use the race to work on map reading and geography.

What would you like to see in the race status info? The status maps are not really complete maps, because they don't have state names, scales, labels, etc, but that could be a lot of clutter. I assumed that people would know the states by position and shape, but if it's an exercise in map reading and geography, are more data needed?

 

Currently I'm planning to update each racer's map when they move to a new state (the important status info, and the minimum work for me), which you can see now on the racer page. Because they are starting in different places with different paths, I don't consider their relative positions important. The current positions don't provide any info about their progress forward the goal. They are just points on a map.

 

I haven't thought too much about keeping a running track of other stats, e.g., the number of caches and the distance traveled. That info is also only secondary to traveling the states, so it isn't important until the race is finished and will be on each of the TB's web pages.

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KSWader

+KSWader

Posted
Posted

I think what you have for stats by changing states is good.

 

When one of the boyscouts bugs move caches, we will help them find where it is located on a map if the need help and then find out which direction it was travelling and how far it went. The TB bug page would get us what we need.

 

Have both bugs ready to drop - just have to decide where to drop them!

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tobsas

+tobsas

Posted
Posted (edited)
Looks like I'm getting a compas because I'm a thousand miles away from another state

 

Sure?

 

Greetings from Germany :-) ,

Tobias

 

PS: You're lucky, our TB is on his way to the US, so you have the thosand miles advantage for this one! ;-)

 

Edit: Don't be too sure because any TB started not in Alaska and going to Alaska and back has the distance twice!!

Edited by tobsas
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raceamerica

raceamerica

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the race starts on may 1st but which time zone is the one that counts. does it start when new yorks clocks hit twelve or when alaskas clocks or one of the other time zones :unsure:

I live in Calfornia so I work in Pacific time or UTC. (New York is not the center of the world.)

 

Unless a night cacher places a racer bug, it shouldn't be a problem when 00:00 is, but local time is more appropriate in this case. Because the bugs are racing the US, the race starts on the East coast. Oh well.

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geojed

geojed

Posted
Posted (edited)
Its only two weeks away, am i only one excited about this race

 

 

                                                  geojed

Considering I'm the only one to log in 50 hours I think I am.

 

(P.S. 51 hours left!!!)

Edited by geojed
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Snoogans

+Snoogans

Posted
Posted
Its only two weeks away, am i only one excited about this race

 

 

                                                  geojed

Considering I'm the only one to log in 50 hours I think I am.

 

(P.S. 51 hours left!!!)

I'm going to try to get an entry together in time...... I don't think I'll make it.... To be honest, I forgot about this one.... What about late entries?????

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