I don't really know what I'm going to put here, but I get a lot of questions about the Tombstone Trail rules from people all over the country who would like to put on a similar event. Maybe I'll put up an archives of the rules from previous years.

For now, a couple of rules for entering the Tombstone Trail, so you won't be surprised when you get here:

1. The Tombstone Trail is not a race. In fact, if you get a speeding ticket, or any other violation, or if the rallymaster has any evidence that you were driving in a manner that would make this event no longer welcomed by the community, you'll be disqualified. If you do it a second time, we'll ask you to not come back ever again.

2. You compete against people with similar experience to your own. We've got a seeding list that shows you what class you'll run in if you enter. You run in the class for the highest seeded person on the team.

3. Only two people are allowed out of the car at any time. Any other passengers are allowed to look at the maps or instructions, but can't get out of the car. You can switch off among people, but you can't let more than two people out of the car, even at different locations. If we find out you do so, you'll be disqualified. We'll make an exception for children too young to read, because they aren't really helpful, but sometimes families like to run together. If you have young children who you'd like to bring along, contact the rallymaster and he'll grant you an exception.

4. Any team with more than 2 adults in the car (adults being 12 or older), will be bumped up a class. There will be a class AA for those teams being bumped from class A.

5. Class G is for people running with GPS navigation equipment. It's also the "anything goes" class, where you can use maps, previous years' anwers, or information gathered on the Internet, if you think it will help. You may still only have two people out of the car at any time, though. You may pre-enter cemetery GPS locations in your GPS device if you like, but you won't know which cemeteries we're using until registration opens.

6. Oh, yeah. The most important rule: Have fun!

See an excerpt from the 2005 Rules.