Welcome to the 9th Annual Dartmoor Geocoin Race.
This year’s race will start on Tuesday 1st February. There is no panic to release your geocoin on Tuesday, but soon after would be very good. However, PLEASE DO activate your geocoin as soon as possible AND let me know its tracking number. If you want to participate but haven’t yet got a race coin, it is definitely not too late, please contact me.
Once again I will award 2023 Dartmoor Race Geocoins for the coins with the top 3 mileages. 
The rules will remain unchanged this year and hopefully we will not see any of the problems of some recent years, which resulted in mileage being deducted and geocoins being disqualified! The most important aspect of the rules is that the geocoins are moved on at all times by cachers NOT known to you and NOT organised by you. Please ensure that anybody who moved your geocoin last year does not have any participation this year.
- Coins only start the race once they have been released into a cache to be picked up by a person unknown, NOT by somebody known to you or organised by you.
- You ARE allowed to give your coin to somebody else to release it for you, in which case they MUST grab it from you first. This allows it to be STARTED from a different place in the UK or from a different country. However, once again coins MUST be released into a cache to be picked up by a person unknown.
- No mileage will be counted by the owner visiting with their coins or by somebody else releasing the coin. Any prior mileage MUST be deleted by deleting those logs.
- Coins must NOT be started off in an event.
- Only original Dartmoor 2022 coins can be used – NO nasty proxies please!
- If you bought (or buy) a second coin from me at a cheaper rate it MUST be entered in the race. There always seems to be a couple of coins each year that never get started which is not fair on others who paid the normal price for their coins.
- I am only going to count the number of miles travelled.
Some useful hints and tips:
The following really are very helpful but seem to be getting ignored by most. Especially those regarding chasing up cachers who have had or probably have had any contact with your coin.
- Physically label your geocoin to say that it is in a race and needs to be moved as far as possible.
- Give as much information about the race on the geocoin description page as possible and include a photo, use the one above if you wish.
- Don’t let cachers keep dipping your coin unless they are going long distances – coins need to be placed in a cache so that they can be moved on.
- If a cacher hasn’t placed your coin within a few days email them and ask them to do so. Don’t let them forget they have it!
- Watch any cache your coin is placed in and ensure that the next visitor logs it as retrieved. If they don’t ask them if the coin was in the cache.
- With the current travel restrictions releasing your coin in a travel bug hotel near an airport is probably NOT a good idea. You also may want to avoid a cache & dash or release it in a PM only cache. However, after it has been retrieved you will have no control.
The geocoin will remain your property and you can set whatever goals you would like on the geocoin page. I would ask you NOT to remove the geocoin’s name but to add to it, e.g. it comes named as Dartmoor National Park 2022 Geocoin, so you could add Sue’s ….. to the front of it. That way everybody can still search for it and I can produce some race details.
If you haven’t got a race coin yet it is definitely NOT too late. Some late entries have done very well and won prizes.
Limited Edition 2022 Dartmoor Geocoins are still available. A single geocoin will cost £15 and a second geocoin for entry into this race will cost just £11. But please note, these cheaper race coins MUST be entered into the race.
Good luck to all. 
