HooHaa TB Race
HooHaa Travel Bug Race 2
February 8, 2010-February 8, 2011
Participants for HooHaa TB Race 2:
Ally Gator *I’m in a Race* (TB340PD)
Angry Beaver, hey where’s my tail? (TB1QWJ9)
Avatar Ducky (TB3422F)
Dog Rescue (TB34AN1)
Golfgunny’s Marine Forces Korea Racing Travel Bug (TB33JP2)
Monkey See, Monkey Do (TB2DVCZ)
Roll out the barrel (TB2A68W)
Save the whales (TB33NFM)
Stormtrooper Han Solo (TB1RFM6)
The Crooked Key (TB32R43)
You’ve got mail (TB2RDGZ)
Kev the racing Kiwi (TB2A2PT)
Special Ed Fred’s Lily Pad (TB2K5QP)
Trolling for Caches (TB27RBG)
CZ’s Hairy Little Ass (TB2RHC3)
Hawaii Bound (TB2RBYF)
Snitch (TB2JCNV)
Nana’s Cancer Cure (TB3373G)
Traveling Scribbler (TB3336C)
Winner by Force (TB336BG)
HooHaa TB Race 2 Rules
ABOUT THE RACE
The HooHaa Travel Bug Race 2 is a geocaching-based race using travel bugs to log miles, photos and all sorts of other things. The idea of the race is to have fellow geocachers activate and set a TB to race with others through the course of a year and over many, many miles.
The race will begin in upstate New York as all of the bugs will be placed in one cache to have the same chance of moving from somewhere.
The first year was a smaller one with nine participants. This year’s race has been expanded and includes players from all over the U.S. and several international contestants as well. The best part is that the players are not only having the travelers, but are also determining the prize pool as each person is donating a non-activated traveler to the pool. It’s a cool concept and a way for the players to have some control over things.
Further, my idea with this race is to have it be somewhat different than other TB races out there. I didn’t want to get into a points system, because I know it would be hard for me to figure everything out. I also didn’t want to have just a miles-based race. So, I came up with several ways for participants to win and I hope they enjoy it.
The rules and FAQs for the race are below.
For more information or to watch what is going on, visit www.hoohaablog.com .
OFFICIAL RULES
Race dates: The race started February 8, 2010 . I will release a new cache with all of the bugs in it so that all bugs leave from the same spot. This cache will be located somewhat near to a major highway so hopefully traveling people will stop by and grab tags to send moving. THE RACE will go for one year from the date everything goes live. On that date, I will calculate the miles, so hopefully all TBs will be somewhere by the time I look that day as back-logging will not count.
What is needed: If you are an entrant to the HooHaa TB Race 2, you will send me a Groundspeak Travel Bug attached to a traveler, as well as a non-activated traveler of some sort (a TB, coin, cheaper things etc. as long as it can be activated and tracked on geocaching.com) for the prize pool. The idea of this race is that it is all about the TB owners and not worrying about soliciting donations. That being said, we have several people who have donated more than what is required as well as others who are not participating in the race.
What do I need to do?: It’s simple. Get your TB, attach it to a traveler, and mail it to me. Activate your traveler, but DON’T drop it anywhere. I will “grab” it from you and place it in the cache when it’s ready to go. Then, for the next year, watch your bug move all over and competing in different categories to win prizes! If you want to be in the race, contact me ASAP!
What happens if my tag is kidnapped or lost?: If that happens, unfortunately, it will be out of the race and we’ll all cross our fingers that it shows up again. The problem with allowing the “copy” tag to be released is what happens if the original shows back up? Then all of a sudden you are piling up double miles and that’s not fair for everyone else involved. We have added a prize for fewest miles traveled this year, so that could be part of the result, too. I hate seeing TBs disappear, but it’s not fair to re-release the same one in case the original comes back into play.
What’s the rule on dipping?: This shouldn’t happen. This is more of a soft and honorable rule, however. I don’t want to see dipping, but realize that it will happen from time to time. I have a paragraph I am sending to everyone that I request is on their TBs page that addresses this as well. If you see it happening, I would appreciate it if you shot off a quick e-mail to the person dipping and explain that it’s not accepted in the race and ask them to drop it in a cache soon. If it continues and there are pages and pages of dips, then I would be forced to ask the owner to delete several of those entries to make it fair.
To recap, if a dip is done once or twice and it’s an honest mistake, we won’t go nuts. But if someone continues to do it, then we’ll have to take action. Hopefully, it won’t come to this and it didn’t last year.
Can I move a TB that is in the race?: I’ve wrestled with this over and over and at this point, I’m going to say no. The issue at hand is if someone grabs one of the racers and doesn’t move it in a week or two. Not that they would definitely be doing it intentionally, but it’s how it could be perceived. I want this race to be fun and exciting, but I don’t want a situation where people are worried that fellow racers are holding their bugs captive.
I’m open for discussion on this, however, so I’m willing to hear all sides.
How many TBs can I enter? You can enter one per caching name. This way it’s fair and easy to keep track of all the bugs.
The race has started, can I still enter? Though we allowed this last year, this year we will not. With everyone starting from the same cache, I want everything in the same spot to start on the same date. It’s fair for everyone that way. There will, hopefully, be a HooHaa TB Race 3 in 2011 though!
PRIZES
Once all prizes are collected, I’ll post a photo of them on my blog.
My blog (http://www.hoohaablog.com) will be the official “headquarters” of the race. I will update the Race portion of the page occasionally and will also post updates throughout the year.
The prize pool will be broken up into the categories, however, I won’t probably publicize them as things might need to switch around. In other words, if someone donated something other than a TB, I don’t want them winning their own donation. So I might swap something in and out.
I will say this, the overall winner (most miles) will win the best prize pack. The others prizes will be much smaller.
PRIZE CATEGORIES
- Most miles for the year
- Most miles quarterly (only can win once: I will post the dates that I will take the mile readings once the race starts).
- Most photos in the TB profile from its travels
- Most states/countries hit (only can count a state or country once)
- Fewest miles traveled
- Most discoveries
PRIZE BREAKUP
With everyone donating something — some more than one item — the prize pool will be very good! The winner (overall miles) will receive, at a minimum two coins and a travel bug. That being said, I am going to also keep final say in who gets what prize as I am not going to send the a coin back to someone who donated it. Therefore, if that happens, I’ll switch something out.
The quarterly winners will each be TBs as we’ve received a lot of TBs for prizes.
There are some GREAT coins and other items, which will be nice. The greatest part about this is that the participants decided this prize pool and I think everyone has done very well!
Once all TBs and prizes are received, I will break them up in the way I think is fair for the categories. I’ll post an overall photo as well as the individual breakup of TBs and prizes.
FINAL PITCH
The thing about this race is that it is meant to be fun. I hope that people who have blogs will have friendly banter and trash-talk with other bloggers and I hope those of you who don’t have blogs will visit others and have your fill of trash talking!
But, the key word here is fun.
Once these TBs are released, we have no control on what happens to them. Therefore, I am hopeful that nobody will take this too seriously. Have fun with it and I hope everyone’s bug travels far and wide during this race.
So, once again: please don’t take this too seriously. I hate to have people thinking others are cheating or anything like that. Please stay honorable and realize this is a game and not worth getting too upset over or too competitive about. Once the bugs are out there, they are on their own!
If you have any concerns, contact me.
—
PAST WINNERS
HooHaa TB Race 1 (Oct. 2008-Oct. 2009): TripCyclone – 9,774.3 miles.
HooHaa TB Race 2 (Feb. 8, 2010-Feb. 8, 2011): TBD
HooHaa TB Race 3 (2011-2012): TBD
