Press Release - 2026 ADV Rally
Press release
108 signed up. 75 started. 64 reached the Pacific.
Sean Ross wins the 2026 ADV Cannonball Rally by only 14 points after eight days, one continent and no sweep truck.
The 2026 ADV Cannonball Rally left Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts on September 16 and finished in Monterey, California on September 23. In between were eight days, eight overnight stops, 100 GPS checkpoints and no support crew for anyone.
The rally sold out and kept a waitlist. In all, 108 riders signed up, 75 took the start and 64 reached Monterey. They came from 26 US states, Canada, Norway and England. When scoring closed, Sean Ross of North Carolina had won by only 14 points, on a BMW R1250GSA wearing the number 3.
The winner, and the Steak Knives
Sean Ross finished with 1,122 points. He took the first to arrive bonus on Day 1 and Day 3, missed only four checkpoints in eight days, and stamped the Monterey finish line at 4:03 PM on the last afternoon, 57 minutes before scoring closed.
He won this rally the way it is meant to be won. He leaned on what he learned in 2025. He brought a motorcycle he trusted. He was consistently quick, he made good navigation choices and he never stopped moving. There were no wheelies down the highway and no hooligan heroics. It was real skill on and off the road, technical preparation and navigation, with a relentlessly positive attitude on top.
This rally has one winner. Second place gets the Steak Knives, and nobody else is ranked. This year the Steak Knives went to Josh Skidmore of Utah, on 1,108 points. He and Sean rode much of the final day within seconds of each other. Then a navigation error in the California coastal hills cost Josh the afternoon. He missed three ten point checkpoints, the finish line among them, and any two would have won him the rally. He rode in after the cutoff knowing exactly what had happened, and he could not have been cooler about it.
The final day was complicated for everyone. A fire in those same hills put at least one checkpoint out of reach.
Self rescue
The ADV Cannonball has a motto, and it is self rescue. There is no sweep truck and no support crew. Bring the wrong tires, skip the preparation or fail to study the navigation, and you can find yourself alone in the desert at sunset with nobody coming. What happens next is up to you.
That is the whole idea. If a sweep truck followed the field across the country, ready to pick up the pieces every time someone pushed too far, would a finisher's medal carry any weight? Would any of the awards? In a world run by lawyers and bullshit, we are the antidote.
So we ask riders to make adult decisions, and the one that comes up every single day is how much to take on. Collecting every checkpoint and still covering the day's mileage is hard. The quickest fifth of the field often reach the hotel by early afternoon. Others do not roll in until midnight. Nobody tells a rider which of those to be.
Every rider took that to heart this year, whether they slept in the sand, had an accident, or rented a U-Haul because an engine grenaded itself. It is what makes reaching the finish line, and collecting an award or a finisher's medal, so much richer. Those who finished can take real pride in it, because it was real.
Scoring follows the same philosophy. It is done autonomously by a GPS app on the rider's own phone, with no judges. You either got the checkpoint or you did not, and the app tells you on the spot. There is no hardware to buy, rent or wire into the motorcycle, which keeps it economical and fair. It scored the whole rally without a hitch for every rider who followed the regulations.
Captain Chaos, a.k.a. The Stig
Rider #1 came to the 2025 rally as Captain Chaos, in full costume, cape included. This year he arrived as The Stig, on a KTM in place of his trusty BMW, after a whole off season of preparation. He carried more than 12 gallons of fuel in five tanks, laser jammers and radar detectors, and a route plotted day by day, some days to sweep every checkpoint and some days to take the first to arrive bonus. He took that bonus on Day 2 and again on Day 4.
Earlier in the week his chain broke, which meant a trip to Home Depot for an angle grinder. He fixed it and went on to win Day 4. Then came Cumberland Pass in Colorado. I was riding the Kove 450 when I saw him come off the mountain with most of his luggage gone and some of his clothes wound into the rear wheel. Behind him, Justin Gutierrez, #13, had found tools and spare parts scattered across the road, stopped to gather every one, and carried them until he caught up with us.
Then the KTM stopped charging. The voltage regulator had failed and no replacement could be found in time. Our rules let a rider fall behind and rejoin anywhere, as late as the awards banquet, and he spent more than 24 hours trying before his rally was over. His father, riding as Father of Chaos, pulled out to stay with him.
Enduristan heard the story and is sending him a new set of luggage. Father of Chaos has already entered 2027. We hope his son follows, and we cannot wait to see who he turns up as. If anyone has the Cannonball spirit, it is Captain Chaos, a.k.a. The Stig.
Rider #100
When Sahil Panwar of Connecticut checked in, I gave him number 100. It was the number Lyndon Poskitt carried at the Dakar Rally, and I thought Sahil could use the encouragement. He had entered on a Yamaha WR250R, the smallest engine in the field, loaded down with two enormous metal saddlebags. He was also the youngest rider to start and finish.
When the field turned west on Day 1, Sahil went north toward Boston, and we still do not know why. He was the last rider in every night for the first four days, reaching each hotel well after midnight.
In Moab he bought proper riding gear. The next morning the bike went into a speed wobble and threw him down the road hard enough to destroy the new gear and grind an eight inch hole through a metal saddlebag. He stood up, dusted himself off and kept riding. He has the whole thing on video. I suspect youth had a great deal to do with that ability. Most of us past fifty would still be lying in the road, regretting our life choices and yelling that this is a young man's game.
Somewhere in the sand outside Moab, chasing an extreme checkpoint, he ran out of daylight and energy, built a shelter beside the motorcycle and slept under the stars. In the morning he mistook a creek for a trail, crashed in it, and told the group chat he was out. He was not out. He rode on, hours behind everyone, and stamped the Monterey finish line at 3:45 PM on the final day, 75 minutes before scoring closed, with the second highest score in his class.
We carried his little motorcycle up into the banquet room to honour him. He was so exhausted that he slept through the whole banquet. He receives the Cannonball Baker Award, named for Erwin "Cannon Ball" Baker, who in 1914 rode an Indian from San Diego to New York in eleven and a half days, when only four miles of the route were paved. A small machine and a rider who would not quit. That is the award, and that is Sahil.
A night in the sand, and a repair on the mountain
Sahil was not the only one to spend a night out. Barry Crawford, #48, from Plymouth, Massachusetts, found himself in the sand outside Moab on his Honda Transalp as the light went. Nothing was broken and nobody was hurt. He had simply had enough for one day. He made a shelter out of his motorcycle cover, slept beside the engine for its warmth, and rode into Moab at 8:33 the next morning. Shortly after ten that night he was in Las Vegas, back with the field. That is exactly the kind of adult decision we like to see.
Justin Gutierrez, the rider who stopped for the scattered tools on Cumberland Pass, had a contender's scorecard up to that point. He knew that stopping to help had cost him his shot at the overall win, so he changed his goal and went after every paved checkpoint, which earned him the Checkpoint Crusher Award.
Coming down the mountains toward Bakersfield on a technical off road section, he dropped his BMW and punctured the valve cover. He had aluminum epoxy in his kit and the skill to use it. He made the repair on the mountain, finished it with a self rescue sticker, and rode on. His fiancée met him at the banquet on her own motorcycle, and the two of them rode home to Washington State on that same repair. Justin rode alone, with no team behind him, and he is exactly the kind of competitor who can take real pride in what he did.
The only scooter
Alexander Wicker, #47, of New York entered the only scooter in the rally, a Yamaha XMAX 300. It broke down somewhere past the Day 2 stop in Lexington, Kentucky. He rented a U-Haul, got the scooter repaired, and caught the rally again in Moab three days later. Even then he did not take the direct route. He went after every paved checkpoint along the way. I still cannot decide whether that was misjudgment or pure badass motorcycling. Either way, the man is a legend. He has already entered 2027, and a second XMAX is coming with him.
Other finish lines
Not every rally ended in Monterey, and some of the best stories belong to riders who finished somewhere else.
Team Liquidity Aleworks of Maryland brewed an ADV Cannonball Rally IPA and sent a case to the start line. In Moab, Tony DeLuca's motorcycle broke down, and it is still there. Jeff and Frank Roelke stayed with him, and the three explored Moab together. Too late to reach Monterey, they pointed two motorcycles and a rented Honda Civic at the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach, the finish line of the original Cannonball runs, and sent us all a photo from there to show they were still in good spirits.
Team Tiger Blood, CJ Harris and Tattoo Dan, followed their own turn by turn directions after dark toward the extreme checkpoint at Chicken Corner in Moab. The directions delivered them to the wrong side of the river, looking up at the checkpoint on top of a thousand foot cliff on the far bank. For that, Tattoo Dan receives the Stegra.IO Prize, which is a gift certificate for a navigation app.
On the final day CJ's chain failed while he was going for an extreme checkpoint in the California hills. He had the bike towed to a shop and tried everything, but could not get back on the road in time for the banquet. Dan made it.
Mark "Iron Man" Turner's Honda Transalp blew its transmission in those same hills. A wrong turn then earned him a military trespass warning. He made it to the tail end of the banquet, collected his finisher's medal, and showed off the paperwork.
From Norway, Sweden and Canada
Janf, #72, flew in from Norway and rode a BMW F800GS, which earned him the Baldinger Award for the greatest distance travelled to reach the start line. The award is named for Robert Baldinger, the Swedish YouTuber who came to the 2025 rally and made a film about it that has been seen by more than a quarter of a million riders. Robert could not make it this year, so he joined us at the start by FaceTime. He is committed to the 2027 USA rally.
Taylor Lawson, host of the ADV Cannonball Podcast, came from Sweden and rode a Kove 450. Riders were thrilled to finally meet the host of the number two motorcycle podcast. We are never number one, but every once in a while we are number two, and in a rally that hands out steak knives for second place, that feels right.
Six riders came from Canada, and all six are on the finishers list. Three of them were the Brices of Team Pyro FX: Andrew Brice, Aaron Brice and Moto Ed. They finished on identical scores and stamped the finish line within three seconds of each other, although one of them covered the last stretch in a U-Haul van. Luke Jankowski of Edmonton came off the waitlist and collected every dirt checkpoint for the Rough Rider Award. Big Dan of Calgary and Stu Grimm of Squamish completed the set.
Two up, and two weddings
Only two teams have ever ridden this rally two up. Eric Smith and Liz, #5, crossed the country on a BMW R1250GSA named Herrin and collected every paved checkpoint for the Checkpoint Crusher Award. Proper preparation, and real teamwork between rider and passenger, turn out to be a serious advantage in a navigation rally.
Chris and Kathleen, #69, rode a Yamaha Royal Star towing a trailer. Theirs is the only trailer rig ever to finish.
The day after the rally, Silky, #49, rode back to Las Vegas and married his bride at the Little White Chapel, both of them in helmets, with his Cannonball motorcycle in every photo. Chris and Kathleen saw the pictures on their way home, stopped at a chapel of their own, and got married beside the Royal Star. They rode the whole rally two up, towing a trailer, and went home husband and wife. That makes two Cannonball weddings out of one rally, and we could not be happier for all four of them.
The truth about the road
There were plenty of dirt naps this year, and more than one rider overshot a corner in the twisties. That is adults making their own choices, and everyone rode away from those. The only two accidents that caused injury happened on ordinary highway, on liaison stages. Competitor #55 was airlifted from the scene on Day 2. He is out of surgery and on the road to recovery. Our friend Kerry Lebel, #4, was hurt on Day 3 in an ordinary construction zone, riding an ordinary motorcycle. It was no fault of his own, and there were no Cannonball antics involved, just the kind of bad luck that can find any rider on any road. He has already entered the 2027 rally.
Counting Sahil's speed wobble, that makes three crashes on the road, and every one of them would have been worse without good riding gear. Sahil is the proof. He showed up at the start line in a black hoodie. By the time he crashed he was wearing proper armoured technical riding gear, bought the night before he needed it. It was the best timed shopping trip of the rally. We will tease him about the hoodie for years, but he walked away because he changed his mind in time.
A welcome at every hotel
The public is not welcome to visit or join the rally on the road, but alumni always are, and this year they turned up at almost every overnight stop. In Las Vegas, riders already entered for 2027 were waiting with a shot for every rider who pulled in.
In Lawrence, Kansas, Beau Earnest walked in. Beau holds the motorcycle Cannonball record, New York to the Portofino in 32 hours and 32 minutes. He had entered this year's rally, and was then hit by a pickup truck while practising on the Lands End switchbacks in Colorado, which are one of our checkpoints. He came anyway, still healing, with a head full of Cannonball stories and a bottle of Cannonball whiskey from the last antique Motorcycle Cannonball, which he shared with the room. It was a privilege to have the master with us for an evening.
At the start, three generations of the Coffin family volunteered as our starters. Gene Coffin once ran logistics for the Doobie Brothers on several of their antique Motorcycle Cannonball attempts.
The number on the front
There is one more thing to tell about the man who won this rally, and it is the number on the front of his motorcycle.
When Sean Ross signed up for this year, after a strong finish the year before, he sent me an email with a single request. He wanted number 3, because it was his son Zack's race number. Of course I made it happen. I assigned the number, moved on to the next email, and did not think much more about it. A rally master answers a hundred small requests in a season, and this one looked like all the rest.
It was nothing like the rest. Sean has allowed me to share what he wrote to me about his son. Here it is, exactly as he wrote it.
Zack passed Nov 3rd 2024. He was on my 2012 GS1200. He started riding at 4 years old. And never missed a season. He was 24. My only son. A elder woman pulled out in front of him in Newport News VA. I was in Suches GA on my KTM 890 when it happened. I had to go home then Drive to VA and pull him off life support. He's always with me when I ride. I know that for a fact.
Sean Ross
Eleven short sentences. That is all the room Sean gives the worst days of his life. Some men do not talk about what they carry. They fix it to the front of a motorcycle and ride it across a continent.
I understood that at the awards banquet in Monterey. I was standing at the front of the room with the winner's award in my hands, Sean was walking up to take it, and the weight of that number landed on me all at once. From Plymouth Rock to the Pacific, Zack's number had been out in front of his father. It met the wind first on every highway and the dust first on every trail.
Sean says Zack is always with him when he rides, and that he knows it for a fact. After this rally, I believe him.
You see a pack of grown men ripping across the country on motorcycles. I see men surviving. You see a speeding ticket now and then, and something that looks irresponsible from the curb. I see an outlet that men need, especially men past fifty. You see the winner of a motorcycle rally. I see Sean. And I see the same thing in every person who rides with us.
Sean's life has been hard in a way most of us will never have to learn. He came to this rally anyway, he prepared for it, and he won it. If it is only a week or two out of his year, I am glad he spends it with us. His story is already doing good among the other men in this community, because it is a story of survival and of purpose, and every one of us needs both.
So as I handed him the award, I had only one thought. How proud Zack must be of his father, who won this rally under his number.
And how proud he is going to be next year, when his father rolls up to the start line with number one on the front of his motorcycle.
Faces of the 2026 rally
The awards
| Award | How it is won | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Overall Winner | Most points at the end of the rally | Sean Ross, #3 |
| Rough Rider | Every DIRT checkpoint | Awarded to each rider who collected them all |
| Checkpoint Crusher | Every paved checkpoint | Awarded to each rider who collected them all |
| Hattrick | All three of the above, won across ADV Cannonball rallies worldwide | Unclaimed |
A rider can take only one of the first three in any single rally, which makes the Hattrick the hardest prize we have. Nobody has claimed it yet.
- The Cannonball Baker Award · Sahil Panwar, #100
- The Baldinger Award · Janf, #72
- Enduristan Luggage Award · The Stig, #1
- The Stegra.IO Prize · Tattoo Dan, #19
- First to arrive, by day · Sean Ross, The Stig, Sean Ross, The Stig, Frank Manfre, Lou Hulsey, Josh Skidmore, Brian Hunnicutt
Final points, every finisher and more photos are at advcannonball.com/2026-adv-cannonball-rally.
2027: two rallies, two continents
June 8 to 16, 2027
ADV Cannonball USA
Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, finishing in Astoria. 4,047 paved miles, 9 days and 11 states, with optional off road sections for those who want them.
September 1 to 8, 2027
ADV Cannonball Europe
Our inaugural European rally. Tarifa, Spain to Skagen, Denmark, up to 5,000 kilometres across eight countries in eight days, with zero support crew.
Partners and sponsors wanted
The ADV Cannonball Rally and the ADV Cannonball Podcast are seeking partners and sponsors for 2027 and beyond. Start at advcannonball.com/sponsor or write to RM@ADVCannonball.com.
Aaron Pufal, author of Chasing Legends and holder of the electric motorcycle Cannonball record
ADV Cannonball Rally · advcannonball.com · Media and sponsorship: RM@ADVCannonball.com
