Adventure Junkie

While AdventureJunkie team (Serge Kurov and Josh Roy) raced and won the Geoquest-Wildside-Special-Edition-Half course, our friend and known adventurer Tom Chadbourne from Perth was watching online tracking and following social media controversial comments. Tom is the action man, so here are some thoughts which are closely aligned with AJ team thoughts, and already are or will become AdventureJunkie Rules some time soon. We would like to encourage discussion on our FB page, to come up with more defined set of rules and ultimately better events.

A couple of ideas came up after the weekend:

1. All teams should try for a group wheelie photo.
2. In the future 20 mins could be set aside at races for people to fight it out with each other. This means no facebook complaints in the mean time. An event organiser isn’t going to duke it out with you on social media so it’s an unfair fight. My Dad once said the building industry went to shit when they lowered the drink driving limit as previously they would battle it out on Friday afternoon at the pub and be happy enough by Monday. We are going back to the 80s.

To the main talking points of the last year or so. You can tune out now if you bore easily:

• Changes to the maps, handouts and extra information before the race starts
• Leaking boats
• Out of bounds
• Bib not the other layer
• The 100m rule
• Mandatory equipment
• Not punching a control - poor navigation
• Not punching a control - missing control, incorrectly placed control, incorrectly described control
• Not punching a control - team forgot
• Lost control card
• Cancelled leg
• Outside communication
• Outside assistance

Some definitions:

1. Rivals time – average time of the teams ahead and behind you for that leg or section.
2. Tump – This is a new term which is used to describe AR penalties. Basically you can’t have the same penalties for a 24hour race as a 5 day race. The penalties can be set in stone in tump units for a certain offence, then each race director specifies what they are using as a tump unit. An example would be a 30min tump for a 48hour race. Inspired by trump, dude just made world peace.

Here is what I think about it:

1. Changes to the maps, handouts and extra information – put all changes and clarifications in writing on a social media page which is continually updated as new queries come in. It’s the worst when you go the wrong or long way because you didn’t ask the question someone else did between the briefing and the race start.
2. Leaking boat – Check they don’t leak and weigh them before we get to them. If they do leak during a leg then give that team their rivals time for that leg.
3. Out of bounds – Out of bounds areas should be labelled if they are dangerous such as a golf course, rifle range, nudist camp, ECT. If they aren’t dangerous and only there to guide the teams then no penalty should be given if a team goes out of bounds but comes back and takes the correct route (they may have just overshot a turn). If they do carry on and essentially take a short cut then they should be penalised 3 times their rivals time for that section. If the out of bounds area is dangerous then it should be labelled and the penalty should be on the map.
4. Bib covered – There shouldn’t be a dress code in AR. Sure make the bib mandatory equipment and ask us to wear it on the outside but if we need to put on a jacket then it should be up to us if we put the bib on the outside and no penalty should be given if we don’t.
5. 100m rule – Cancel rule. Bring in individual electronic timing and make the team all punch a control within one minute. This makes the race fairer as all members must be together to collect a control.
6. Mandatory equipment – There should be a check in each race at the start, it all seems a bit late after that. Another random 10min timeout gear check would be good as you could have a snack in peace. Penalty of one tump for a missing personal item and 4 tumps for a missing team item seems ok.
7. Not punching a control - poor navigation – unranked, too hard to give a fair penalty.
8. Not punching a control - missing control, incorrectly placed control, incorrectly described control – the emphasis here is on the setter to make it achievable with navigation skills and not grid searching skills. The CP should either be large and high enough to easily see or the description should be detailed. If there are multiple features in a very small area and the map is not defined then just tell us in the control description which feature you put it on, like the south one. If the majority of the field have difficulties with a control then the time taken from the last control should be credited to each team, like it never happened.
9. Not punching a control - team forgot – the whole team would have to forget hence unranked
10. Lost control card - replacement chips issued to individuals at TA with no penalty.
11. Cancelled leg - remove the time any team spent on that leg.
12. Outside communication - apart from having someone there with Google maps and a tracker guiding you through the course then no issues. No use of pay phones.
13. Outside assistance - no use of anything pre organised which includes a support car full of spares, pre ordering food and pre ordering accommodation. We can however buy food, spares and accommodation if they are available when you arrive. You can also borrow from anyone you meet on the course but this can’t be someone who has driven specially to give you an item they know you need.

All pictures are taken from Wilside Geoquest Special Edition