The First CircumConUS Travel Bug Race

Status

Carl, Cartman, Crapper, Gumby, and Tou-can are on the way to Minnesota. Sunday Drive is on the way to Washington.

Racers that have gone missing since the beginning of the race have been removed from the map and their status changed on the racer page.

The current positions of all the racers are on the following map and the list of racers is on a separate page.

Position Map as of 10 Jul 2007

Please see the racers page to see each of the 26 racers.

Background

The original idea for a circumnavigating race came from another geocacher, nicknamed SomewhereInND, who has a border state race starting and finishing in North Dakota. Hopefully there will be some lessons learned from the 1st Annual Travel Bug Cannonball Run, which ran in 2003 and the CircumConUS TBs will be well on their way by the time the 2nd Cannonball starts.

For more information about geocaching, please see www.geocaching.com. For more information about travel bugs, please see http://www.geocaching.com/track/. The latter part of that page is a FAQ.

Start and End Caches

EELBOY's event was the release and distribution point for the travel bugs participating in the race. All of the racers were dropped in the event cache and physically mailed to Brad or brought to the launch event. A few pictures were taken at the event, including a group picture of the racers.

Race Rules

1. Travel bugs will follow a counter-clockwise route around the US. The required stops are at least one cache placement in the following states: California (starting state and cache), Texas, Florida, Maine, Minnesota, Washington, and back to the starting state and final cache IN THAT ORDER. The bugs must trace the states in this order so any skipping of these goal states means backtracking. All other states and countries can be skipped.

2. Bugs must be physically placed in a cache in each state visited. No "I was here with the bug" logs, someone else has to retrieve the bug after placement.

3. After the start, no TB racer owners can handle ANY of the racers. The actions of third parties are not under the owners' control. They have a long race to run, so negative interference is not encouraged. Please be considerate and fair to the racers and help them on the way.

4. After the start, no more than two race bugs may be placed in any given cache.

5. Racers may not be mailed, shipped, transported, faxed, etc by cachers or muggles after the race starts. Racers should be carried from cache to cache by cachers, but grabs sometimes happen when cachers meet.

6. The race was due to be over 1 Jan 2005, but none of the racers were anywhere near finishing then, so now we wait until the price winning racers reach the (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) finish/final cache.

7. Disputes will be discussed in the race thread in the geocaching.com Travel Bug Forum.

8. The racers may attach information tags, maps, cinder blocks, etc to their bugs. Instruction tags are encouraged.

9. Racer bugs must be dropped into the release event cache listed above by 2 Jan 2004, to be released at the event on 3 Jan. If you're not bringing your racer to the event, then your bug needs to received by Brad before the event.

10. After your bug finishes, you will have to decide if you want the bug mailed back to you or released (with a new instruction tag).

Awards

• First place - basic compass and Mini Maglite flashlight
• Second place - basic compass*
• Third place - Dorcy LED flashlight*
• Most creative or unique TB hitchhiker - 2 TB tags (to continue the good work)
• Most mileage by the end of the race, regardless of finishing - certificate

The most creative or unique racer was determined by an online vote during the first two weeks after the race started, so voting ended on 17 Jan. The winner was bazzle's Sunday Drive. Congratulations bazzle! Thanks to everyone who voted,

More Information

The Groundspeak Geocaching Logo is a trademark of Groundspeak, Inc. Used with permission. The race and these web pages are not sponsored by, endorsed by, or otherwise affiliated with Groundspeak, Inc.