August 14 - 15, 2004 - 6:30am to 6:30am - Our team was at the fifth annual Mississippi Valley 24 Hour Challenge in New Baden, IL. It's a 24 hour long bike race for 30 riders along mainly farm roads. There was a 55 mile day loop and a 12 mile night loop. Our team provided communications along the routes, drove the routes looking for riders that needed help, sat at busy intersections at night with our vehicle warning lights on to give warning to motorists that bike riders were on the road, and lined a one tenth mile stretch of IL Highway 161 with reflective cones and strobe lights to alert motorists that bike riders were on the busy highway. At one point during the race overnight, an angry drunk driver blocked the road for a few of the riders so unit #220 called the police. The officer took down the statements of the riders and went to the driver's house (which was along the race route) to have a talk with him. Our team patrolled the road the driver lived on and escorted the riders to keep them safe the rest of the night.

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