Iron Butt Rally 2023 – Day -2 – Registration and Inspection

I got up at six and after a typical …American breakfast, registration started at 7 a.m. At lot of stations had to be passed, I went for the paperwork first: insurance, repatriation insurance, GPS tracker check, camera check, video statement recording, In the car park, it was time for the bike papers check and tech inspection. All ok, also the auxiliary tank check. The only ‘problem’ was about the stickers. No commercial stickers are allowed on the bikes, sponsoring is prohibited.

I had wondered if my number plate holder could be a problem, it bears the name of BMW dealer. But no, it were the decals with the name of my site (see the top of this page!). I insisted that this would be my blog site and nothing commercial. In order to have a ‘level playing field’, I was told to cover it with tape. When I tried to put some Gaffer tape on it, Dale ‘Warchild’ Wilson, the head of tech inspection felt sorry as it would destroy the stickers. He made the Solomonic proposal to just cover the ‘.com’ with tape….and so I did. The whole story brought me the first mention in a daily report this year, maybe for the wrong reasons. Well….🙄.

What was missing was the odometer calibration route of about 54 km. It is to be done to determine a correction factor for the milage ridden during the rally. I managed not to take wrong turns like others and at after three hours, everything was done and dusted and rally master Jeff Earls congratulated me for being an entrant to the IBR 23! Everything went very smooth, even the ridiculous sticker episode. Well, I had gone through this before, practice makes perfect.

After this, I went to the gym and did some exercise, I had not moved my bones in one week. In the afternoon I chatted with fellow riders, strolled through the carpark and decreased the entropy in my hotel room by packing the luggage for Monday. At 6 p.m. I joined the happy hour and later the buffet dinner. In contrast to the the previous two IBRs, I am super relaxed and everything worked out just fine. Tomorrow is another relaxing day…until the riding meeting.

I add some pictures from the dark park for entertainment.