This morning the Cannonball train packed up and left Dayton, OH.  The word around the morning breakfast table was that of late night wrenching and parking lot machining miracles.  Several teams worked into the wee hours of the morning getting machines prepped for today’s ride that would take us over the Ohio river and into West Virginia.  Riders were anxious and on edge knowing that today we would start seeing some elevation changes so they wanted to make their machines ready for upcoming challenges. It seemed as if all was good because sweep trucks were completely empty for over half the day. Then chaos: at mile 104 the lead sweep truck picked up a Class 1 bike #75 Dan Emerson who was in 3rd place overall. Emerson endured a catastrophic failure that wasn’t able to be road side repair. Not even 3 miles later sweep picked up #114 Stuart Garrison who was leading Class 4.  It wasn’t over from there, it seems the elevation and increased heat also claimed #84 George Banks who was also a rider ranked in the top 10 of the field, along with those the sweep trailer also saw 3 more competitors on the trailer.  As of now there are only 2 riders in Class I that maintain a perfect score and Class II lead by #5 Jeff Tiernan riding a 1912 Henderson has moved up to 3rd place. And at the end of Stage 4 there are still 55 riders that are maintaining perfect scores.  We expect the event to see some changes tomorrow as riders will make their way into the Appalachian mountains with elevations from 600 to 3,300 foot above sea level.  You can catch us tomorrow at Thunder Road Harley-Davidson in Danville, VA.