Stan Shingler - hero, legend, resourceful problem solver..

After a very wet start to Thursday and some critical thinking by the riders, the idea of a night Prologue in the rain was abandoned. The monsoon did relent sufficiently for afternoon sighting rides by most of the riders in one way or another.

After a further riders meeting, five riders got to ride the prologue route with two heroes emerging, for entirely different reasons.

Winner of the Prologue was Marshall Jankovsky who arrived on the event from Seattle less than half an hour before the 8pm start, on his first TSD rally and promptly returned scores around 60 seconds per leg for every leg. “He has got this!”.

Way later, in the dark and horribly behind schedule, concerns for Stan Shingler were beginning to mount. Stan was also on his first TSD rally and had initially gone off in the wrong direction from the start, only to realise his mistake and ride past everyone waving in acknowledgment.

The event crew were just about to set out in the recovery truck and trailer, preparing to drive the route in the reverse direction when, through the trees appeared the faint white glow of a LED headlight, followed by a thump-thump-thump of a single cylinder motorcycle engine.

As he neared, a flap flap flap could also be heard. He had had a front tyre deflate and had cable-tied the tyre to the rim and had ridden 45km through the forest at slow speed. Respect, sir!

So, the first two heroes of the event have emerged - for entirely different reasons.

And while Stan fixes his flat, everyone else gets on with business…

JDB