BLOGGERS CONTEST UPDATE & EXPLANATION

THE EXPLANATION:
Sorry for the delay - I’ve re-tabulating the results yet again. It’s time consuming because every time I download an update, I have to remove the illegitimate data by hand.

A lot of you are wondering why some contestants have moved down in the rankings. Here’s the quick explanation: for a vote to count it must list a “first,” “second,” and “third” choice. Sadly, the guilty party not only voted for themselves “first” hundreds of times, they also voted for other contestants dozens upon dozens upon dozens of times, (at times in big blocks) for their second and third choices. These ballots also had to be considered illegal and were subsequently removed.

My guess is that a script was set up on a handful of machines that cleared both the cookies and the cache of the machine and then automated the voting process, subsequently allowing each machine to vote again and again. Backing out all of the bad data has played hell with the rankings and completely upended some of your expectations. In some cases, folks who thought they were in good standing now find themselves somewhat behind. There are some ruffled feathers out there.

We’ve had a few thoughtful conversations over the weekend with some of the contestants, and there have been some unsurprisingly clipped emails directed at us as well. There’s also a bit of backlash going on by some folks online (and I’m sure in person.) Let me set the record straight – we are not cheating or skewing the results, we are merely rectifying a situation not of our making...and investing a lot of our time in doing so. I can understand some anger, but having it directed at us seems a little off base. With that said, that’s also sort of understandable as we haven’t released a detailed explanation until right now. Please feel free to pass this along to whomever may benefit from reading it.

My phone number and email are generally public domain. I would encourage ANYONE who has questions to pick up the phone and speak to me rather than allow those ambiguities to balloon into something else. I truly regret that things worked out this way, but again I must reiterate, our mistake was trusting in the integrity of the individual. Our experience here in Colorado has always proven this to be the proper course. Withe the Mountain States Cup, The Firecracker, Mountain Bike Little League and The Summit Mountain Challenge we’ve gone to great lengths over the past decade to cultivate, recognize and at times reward what we perceive as outstanding instances of sportsmanship. This philosophy has served us well. I believe that most people, and certainly the vast majority of all of you subscribe to this ethos. Unfortunately, there are some who do not and there is one in our midst.

Thanks for hanging in there –

Mike

Michael McCormack
Managing Director The GreenSpeed Project, Inc.
mikemac@breckepic.com 970.485.5847

UPDATED RESULTS:
Ok folks – these are the real results once the bogus votes have been removed. As you can see, there’s still a bit of shuffling going on and not much space separating some of the top vote-getters and those within striking distance.

You’ve got until midnight to get the vote out, so if you've got a horse in the race, get your pork-luvvin’, Tammany-hall style politician’s smile out and keep shaking those hands and kissing those babies.

…and please, please, PLEASE – impress upon your friends that importance of only voting once per computer. Now that our radar is up for suspicious activity I’ll be taking it upon myself to discard all shady-looking votes. There’s an acceptable limit to how many votes can come from one box – and we’re actually being pretty generous in that regard, but my advice? Don’t push it too far. Do not let your chances be marginalized.

MM

5358 Jen Hanks, Salt Lake City, UT, played by: Jennifer Garner from “Alias” and “Elektra”
5273 Team Dicky, aka Rich Dillen, Charlotte, NC, played by: Rick Moranis
5020 Tomi McMillar, Carlisle, PA, played by: the "I've fallen and can't get up" lady
4993 Heather Szabo and Mary Monroe, Lafayette and Durango, CO, played by Cameron Diaz (X2)
4890 Luke Wiens, HOMETOWN: Temecula, CA, played by: Robert Duval
4616 Matthew Juth, Evergreen, CO, played by: Edward Norton
4024 Brandon Dwight, played by Bill Murray (directed and produced by Wes Andreson)3967 Jeffrey Carter, Denver, CO, played by that guy from Breaking Away
3906 Wendy Skean, Mountain Center, CA, played by: Tinker. In drag.
3861 Neil Miner, Boulder, CO, played by Jon Heder
3728 Ryan Draper, Canmore, Alberta CAN, played by Owen Wilson (He hopes)
3238 Mary Wilcox, Ogden, UT, played by: The 5th Element. Or Angelina Jolie. Or Will Ferrell.
2934 Lynda Wallenfels, St George, UT, played by Claire Littleton
2751 Ben Thompson, Bend, OR, played by: Himself
2739 Anthony Maguire, Taos, NM, played by “Ant” Maguire
2661 Larry Grossman, Eagle, CO, played by: Robert DeNiro
2551 Keith Berkoben, Somerville, MA, played by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
2531 Sarah Uhl, played by....wait for it...SARAH UHL!
2150 Cory Wallace, played by Harrison Ford/Indy/the Blade Runner guy