Well it's getting awfully close to Mad Bastard time – just over four weeks away! We've been busy at Mad Bastard HQ and here's the weekly update of what we've been doing...

STUFF TO BRING

Be prepared!

We're working on a list of what you may want to consider bringing on the Rally. Stuff like a good seat cushion, riding gear or some spare parts. There is a thread started in the Ward on this, so if you have any ideas/suggestions, please post there and we'll be sure to steal them and pretend that we knew all that stuff already and didn't need your stinking help in the first place! 

Thanks (for nothing...).

The other stuff that some of you have been asking about bringing is a guest. Now we're all for you bringing a guest or five and you're welcome to bring as many as you can stuff into your hotel room, however we are limited to how many we can squeeze into the presentation and awards room. 

In order to keep as many slots open to riders we came up with the following idea;

Pre May 25th (Registration close date) – Any guests can register but then they have to pay the full rider fee but they'll also get all the rider stuff, they just won't get to actually ride ... although they could if they changed their mind.

Post May 25th – we'll open up any available spots to guests at a reduced rate, though it will likely still be in the $100 - $125 range as the food part of the rally is the most expensive.

T-SHIRT DESIGNS

Our resident designer (Gary) has come up with a proposed design for the MBSR 2009 t-shirt which we think is absolutely super. We'll be slapping it on good quality black t-shirts. Feedback is welcome ... please feel free to do so in the Ward.

RULES ADDITIONS 

This is now two groups of two ...

I forgot about this one, but I though I'd better get it in there since we now have a team that made it necessary. Okay, what if you have two people who want to ride the rally but they only have one scoot?

The answer is to enter as a team. That means that both bastards sign-up and both are in the same team and both have a chance of winning (though it's going to be down to the photographs submitted as that'll likely be the only differentiating factor).

The other ruling is for the number of riders in a team. Since we're going to be offering a team prize (see below) we need to know roughly how big a team is. What we've decided is that  a team can be either 2 or 3 people, meaning that if you have four or more, then you simply break it up into several teams.

The all is all good and dandy for everyone currently signed up except Team Zeppo who are a team of four (soon to be 2 x 2). Sorry Team Zeppo, but we're confident you can divide and conquer.

PRIZES

The main prize!

Okay, so we all know what you can win on an individual basis if you prove to be the maddest bastard of them all (a KYMCO Super 9 just in case you missed that one), but what about a team prize?

Okay, well firstly let me say that to determine a team prize winner, we'll be adding up all the individuals points of a team and dividing that number by the number of individuals in that team (now defined as either 2 or 3), to get an average.

The team with the highest average gets the title of Maddest Bastards and a 2-4 of beer to take home with them (that's a 2-4 each BTW, thus the need to limit team size).

Oh, and there's also a Media Class (because it just looks bad if a media type wins the main prize, but it's also bad if we can't get any to attend because there's nothing to win/compete for). The media – being the important type that they will get a lovely plaque (or something similar) and maybe something valuable like a can of beans (size and quality to be decided).

And finally, there's the Friday night raffle. We'll be selling tickets on the night but you'll also be getting a certain amount of free tickets if you managed to raise some dollars for the charity. All monies raised during the raffle will also go the Childrens Help Phone.

Here's the current list of prizes we have (will be updated as we get more):

MAD BASTARD POINTS

There's a 100 points for rider attire!

It’s not easy coming up with a suitable way to decide who is the maddest bastard of the rally, but we think we’ve come up with some usable criteria, with up to 1,000 points up for grabs!

We've done some fiddling with the points system that we used in 2007. New is the points for pledges ('cause we want to encourage charity donations), there's more emphasis on the cc class (with extra points being allocated to the smallest class), no more points for the rider's age (any age advantage is a tad subjective) and increased weighting on creativeness of rider attire and scooter decor as this is what we want to see.

For a more detailed look at how they break down, go to "winning". For now, here's a brief summary of how we plan to award those thousand points.

1) POINTS FOR PLEDGES (worth up to 100 points)

2) MADNESS OF THE SCOOTER (worth up to 350 points – Age 50, Class 200, Uniqueness 100)
 
3) MADNESS OF THE RIDER (worth up to 100 points)

4) MADNESS OF THE ROUTE (worth up to 450 points - allocation of which to be revealed at the Rally)

Oh yes, and any points that are discretionary (i.e. uniqueness of the scoot and madness of the rider) are to be decided by the Rally Master. 

HOTEL ROOMS

The block of rooms that we have booked for rallyists is only secured until the 12th May – that's a week away! If you need a to book a room at the special rally rate of $119.00/night then please go to the hotel page and follow the links.

CHARITY UPDATE

We're now at a total of $2,710.00 raised which is 54% of our goal. Now that we've hiked the total points for this category to 100 (10% of all available points), let's see what we can get for next week's update.

Oh yes, and in order to make it easier to see where we're at with the charity, we've added a link directly to it on the MBSR menu bar (above).

OMMISSIONS AND ERRORS

Oh dear, in our last update we wrongly credited the oldest bike (a 1963 Honda C100, to be ridden by Ben Yu Schott), when in fact it is a 1958 Heinkel Tourist to be ridden by Tom Tollefson of Team Zeppo. Apologies to Tom for the mistake, Mr Schott has indeed been shot for causing the confusion ... even though it wasn't actually his fault.

REGISTRATION

Get there however you can!

Currently we have 60 spots confirmed with another 7 booked (but waiting payment to confirm – if this is you, please let us know what you plan to do). That means there's still at least 8 spots up for grabs until we reach our capacity of 75.

If you have a scoot and want to be be a part of mad history, then register now as all remaining spots are on a first come, first served basis.

THE MBSR 09 CHARITY

We've opened up the pledges for the Kids Help Phone and the registered Mad Bastards have so far raised a very impressive $2,560.00 (that's over 50% of our goal of $5,000), with John Seesink leading the charge at $1,015.00 raised!

If you haven't registered for the charity yet, then we recommend that you do as this year there will be points (actual amount to be announced on May 4th) to be gained from monies raised – just make sure that if someone sponsors you online that they tag it to your name, otherwise it's listed as anonymous and no-one gets the credit ... or more importantly, points.

Riding with friends is always better.

TEAMS

Matt Tesluk and Darlene Ing are riding the Mad Bastard as a team but instead of riding two bikes, they're both going to do the 800+ kms of the rally two-up on a BWs 50! Team name? 2 up 2 crazy. 

We're also going to have an all girls team (Team DirtyGirls on Hondas) in the Straight Jacket class (under 50cc). Andrea Goodman (an MBSR veteran) will be joined by Aliki Karayan and Barb Piatkowski and will be riding a mix of Ruckus 50s and Jazz 50s, thanks to a sponsorship by Honda Canada.

Oldest bike? 1963 Honda C100 to be ridden by Ben Yu Schott. Best team name to date? The Knights of the Wandering Sausage ...