No "prize" money was awarded to the 11 riders who finished the 2011 Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge within the allotted time, but apparently most of them did get paid something.
The following is part of a post this morning from Frank Kelly, rider #175, made on Facebook and then passed along on the LDRider Digest, from where it came to me.
Let me please try and take a second and explain to you my take on this whole thing. Out of the 11 riders Will was the only one not recognized for reasons I am unsure of. The rest of us were in trouble for speeding. After a long discussing with the Hoka Hey and the 8 riders left in the room (Will being DQed for something other than speeding, another guy was over in the middle east, and one guy just left mad which is understandable and I hope he has cooled off by now) there was an agreement between us that yes we the riders understand and admit to going over 20mph at some point (Hard to dispute when they have our GPS tracking records). This is considered reckless driving by most states and is against the rules of the Hoka Hey. The huge grey area about speeding and the fact that the GPS tracking device wasn't supposed to be used against us in regards of speeding left us in quite a pickle. So an agreement/compromise was made in order to protect the riders' reputation and integrity while still showing that organization wants to abide by the state laws on the regards of speeding. That we would still be recognized and we did receive money for completing this in the allotted time frame while still holding our positions (although this money received can't be considered prize money). So by the end of the day you ended up with 8 very honest men that could admit when they were wrong and an organization that cares enough about the integrity of their riders to pay us and still recognize them in order of finishing as "One of the Greatest Riders in History". I walked away from this a very satisfied man...in the end I didn't run this for the money...after the mess last year this was great for me.
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