wELL I WILL CONFESS THAT WE DID HAVE A FEW OR SAY 20% of votes put in by us with a simple urge to see our selves on the topbut never made it

I wanted to confess and withdraw at some stage !! - i just thought - when we teach our own kids to stand up and speak the truth and paradoxically we grownups take the shortcut with lies, envy ! and Greed !  but i am not in Final 100 !  ...then still it matters ! I had proxy votes !! ....many many without my control !! ....lots of well wishers and huge number of my Institutional employees and over-zealous friends ! They just told me to shut up and follow the MAD RAT RACE ! .why hide ?  ..i am at Guilt….  i am sending this message with my Particulars !! ... i have learnt my lesions !! so Com-on guys you too can take away your guilt if there is any !!  ....who is divine ?

this is my Initiator for the thread going !!

ks

Well… well… do I need to say that we also pushed in some votes and we have made it to top 100. Though after reading the blogs I believe that we would have made it without that extra push anyway.

I would also give advice to those few who faked the votes but in the most non - innovative fashion. All is fair in love and war so cheat as much as you can but make sure that you do not get caught in the process
I simply identified number of votes that were needed for me to be barely in top 80 (just to be safe). Found out a name directory and randomly selected those many names. Wrote a simple script that would vote for us every few minutes randomly and forwarded all such mail Ids to my own and kept verifying at my leisure. All this taking less than 2 -3 hours of work in entirety…

I’m almost sure that I would not make it to top 9 or 12 for that matter as I see many more contestants putting in many more hours writing new blogs, which I could not find time for. And some have truly quality photographs. All the best to you all…

And finally the reason I wrote this confession, the organizers should find a way to stop / cut short people like me next time Kudos to you guys for coming up with such fantastic idea and an even better execution…

I created email id’s for my parents to increase the vote count.

Its a matter of pleasure you came up with this, thanks, it would almost killed me to have kept it bottled up.
There was a lot of hue & cry about some people being on the top 100, well jury has all the power to choose but someone, who had nothing posted to show their worth & be here.
We didn’t want to add fuel to the fire.
Though it demoralized us so much, we couldn’t do anything for a day,we felt cheated.
And thanks for giving us a platform for voicing it out…..they are too many creative souls in here, people who are almost slogging everyday.
Winning & losing are a part of the game.
We shall take whatever comes, with pride, but please assure that whosoever wins, people don’t question.
If ,God forbid, we lose let’s feel the other ones were better.

Hi,

I have to confess that I did sit some times of the day and made up new e-mail ids and voted, thus constituting bogus votes. I also got some other of my friends to do the same.
But it is all for just to stay in the top 100, coz i know if i get to the auditions I have a good chance.

I did it out of desperation when I saw people had over 1000 2000 votes, i was stumped.

Someone anonymous kept writing testimonials & everyone knew who anonymous was.

are you still guessing?

When we win, we proudly announce the same to the World but when we do something wrong we try to defend ourself. But to have humility to accept that we goofed, messed or did wrong is something very difficult.

Well, I do confess that under peer pressure, I did asked several of my friends to do multiple votes for us so that we stay in race.

It hurted afterwards like hell and at some point I even wanted to take my application off.

I apologise for it, even under peer pressure, there is no reason to choose a wrong way. I quickly recovered and reached out to ensure it stopped in time.

This is probably the first time I lost my way but learnt my lesson, and I promise, never again. No win is more important than your own peace of mind.

Thank you Sandip, I feel light.

*************************Here is My 7-lister********************************

1. Me and my Partner have been real great Online friends since last few months, but we will be meeting Face to face, for the FIRST TIME on the Challenge !
2. I could have blasted any number of Votes ( genuine ) that has been casted for any candidate in this challenge with the kind of public networking I have , but I refrained from it because I strongly felt that Voting is just one LITTLE criteria for selection, so we chilled out throughout!
3. I’m fine with issue of selection of ‘Sapna Bhavnani’ in top 100, (inspite of incomplete application and indecent language addressing our beloved TGDC ) and I ALSO wish she is there in top 3 as well because it would be a great pleasure to show her what a REAL attitude is and to tell her , what are the things that CAN’T be done standing on one leg !!!!
4. My partner is a better driver than me… infact much better driver !! I am more of a ‘Bike’ person.
5. When it comes to a 4 wheeler , I’d never buy a CAR, I would prefer an Old Open Willy’s or M_ _ _ 4*4 classic jeep !
6. I feel , getting to final 3 might be a good LUCK , but I KNOW if we two r among 3 finalists then its us who WIN the challenge. There is no other way out it ! Sorry for this friends !
7. One Guilty full Confession is still left !!

*****************************************************************************

ok i admit i did write a few fake votes for someone,, even they don’t know it yet, i just did it because they are such wonderful people and they so deserve it, i just hope i haven’t screwed up things for them even more..

I created email id’s for my parents to increase the vote count and also asked my friends to vote multiple times using the different email ids. But once TGDC team announced that votes are not the only criteria I stopped doing that.

Dear Sandeep,
No real confession as such from our side but, Yes we are aware that certain overzealous friends did vote for us more than once. It was not of my asking and we did try to end it as soon as we saw it happen. We did request them to Vote only once as we were confident that our plans, travelogue and experience would take us forward. My guess is that we would lose about 5-8 votes at the most.
Although we were late starters. (Posted our profile only on Friday 10th July 2009) We did receive an indication of being contenders for the Top 100 the same evening) In 7 days up until Friday 17 July midnight we had 263 Votes and 25 testimonials.
Thank you for the thankless and excellent job that all of you are doing to keep this as clean as possible.
I have been involved with both participating and organizing Motorsport events and I can very well understand the agony one must go thru at the hands of some very genuine losers due to certain unfortunate cheaters. Thank You.

hi sandeep…........ i just would do anything under the sky to take my wife on this drive. initially we thought about a hundred and fifty votes would be good, cos i thought 150 guys voting for u from ur close knit circle would take us up there among the top 100. Instead we got a 270 plus votes from our friends and associates. But as days passed by, we witnessed people stamping in FAKE votes to a humungous level.

I decided i am not going to be left behind. And made up my mind to punch in as many votes as possible BUT NOT FAKE ONES BY CREATING FAKE IDs. Instead i put my brains to work and called up JUST DIAL services and caught hold of a data base provider on the 15th of this month.

He initially spoke very sternly and quoted Rs 5000=00 for 25000 email IDs. i sent my assistant promptly on time without a bargaining sequence and i dont know what made him send me 60,000 (SIXTY THOUSAND) IDs !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wrote a PLEADING BEGGING email request asking everyone to vote for me EVEN THOUGH THEY DINT KNOW ME.

Some recognised my plight as a “noble cause” and some threw brickbats at me saying—- i dont know you, so why do i vote for you??????

there was just two days left and the TGDC servers were going haywire in sending the confirmations for the votes.

I have personally cut - paste - COMMA’d every email ID. ie about 7000 IDs

If at all there were another two days to confirm…..... I was expecting a whopping 3000 plus votes BUT NOT FAKE ONES

Thanks Sandeep for providing me this forum to inturn thank all those unknown souls who voted for us in the last two days to the tune of 30 to 40 votes against 7000 requests !!!!!!!!

Many of them are now friends with me on orkut & facebook

after writing all this, it would be injustice to all those unknown angels who voted for us IF WE DO NOT DISCLOSE OUR IDENTITY

VISHAL / ANUSHKA

Team TGDC - Should you feel that this should not be posted, feel free to refrain.

An honest confession! I’ve got to know who the final 12 are.

Btw, I ain’t disclosing this to no one. You guys have organised a wonderful contest! Great work!

I’ll admit this much, I was scornful of applications that gave us things like how far people had driven in how few hours, or lists of places visited, or fawning odes to Mitsubishi, or lists of cars driven. Or indeed, SHIT, whether on one leg or upside-down.

I believe that travel is about the experiences and the people and the thoughts it puts in your head. (Not about the tool that you use, even if it is a Cedia, and the miles you put on it). Given that outlook, I truly believed we had the best application, if measured in terms of travel experiences offered up in the most engaging way. (Admittedly I did not look at all the applications, but a reasonable random sample). We are the best, I really thought—and so I sat back in self-satisfied smugness.

What this contest taught me is the pitfalls of such complacency. To capture and keep an audience’s attention over weeks—and that’s the key here, it seems to me—you need to do more than just say your piece and sit down, even if you think your piece is good. You need to tweak it, knead it, massage it, turn it inside-out—in other words, keep it constantly interesting and intriguing. (As so many others here did so magnificently). Keep finding creative ways to bring people back for more.

In that, I failed. It’s a sobering lesson. No, we did no faking of votes, nor will we ever do it. But if we attempt something like this again, we will do some different things. If we do those well, the votes will come without the need for fakery. That’s the lesson for a next time.

One final thing: I also believe that I don’t assuage guilt (if I feel any) by remaining anonymous. Even if Sandip tells me I can.

all good things to you all,
dilip.

https://greatdrivingchallenge.com/application/1246946775796126/

The magnanimous 1000,2000,3000+ votes of the first page contestants made it inevitable for us to fake a few votes on 17th July. The highest-vote criterion left us with no choice. However, in spite of being one of the lucky 100, we confess for acting childish, selfish and spurious.
Desperate measures for desperate targets..!!!!!! 
This initiative of Mr. Sandip proves the genuineness, modesty and class of the renowned jury. Thank you for off-loading the burden from our hearts. Now we are more confident than ever before that we are the worthy couple to be one of the top finalists. Thank you once again for flowing in divinity through us.

I confess that I am concieted enough to think that we - me and my spouse- have an enviable   driving and travelling experience. But thats all. Since this contest is about the great travelling experience in a whole which included many components , I have to yet again confess that we were maybe not upto the markin the other fields. In fact let me be honest I knew we were not upto the mark. still we were hoping for the best.But something hapened on 1st of July which made it apparent(thats another story and too personal to confess) that we should not make it. And now that we didnt make it, I will call it divine justice. but this is only about this year. next year thingsill be different. take my word

We made it to top 100 for all the good and honest reasons. We are glad we did not cheat even a bit and still could make it to the top. Though some of our friends did try to put some bogus votes. We stopped them as soon as we realized they did that.

There was a time when I was urged to call my friend who runs a call center and ask for thousand of votes to outnumber others who were getting amazingly unbelievable numbers every hour. My partner saved me from the sin! Thank God!

Our idea of this challenge has been “play fair. at least we have nothing to repent even if we cannot make it to the top”

As far as the excitement, joy and journey goes, we have been roaming around so far happily and will continue to do so. This challenge has given us some new food for thought, strengths and ideas. We are going to be road warriors with or without any contest or challenge. We will continue to capture the beauty of this world through the eyes of our cameras and publish them for the world to benefit. We are doing out bit to contribute to anyone ad everyone in this world. The spirit is much higher than anything else.

One thing this challenge taught us was to use our travel experience and photography to make a difference in the world! for better!

After playing the game with all effort is more significant than winning it!

We are remaining anonymous here not because we are afraid. We are anonymous because we trust the jury and we do not wish to utilize this blog to highlight ourselves among others. Everyone is a deserving candidate.

Three cheers to the spirit of TGDC and the jury!
You guys rock!

Dear Sandip,
No real confession as such from our side but, Yes we are aware that certain overzealous friends did vote for us more than once. It was not of my asking and we did try to end it as soon as we saw it happen. We did request them to Vote only once as we were confident that our plans, travelogue and experience would take us forward. My guess is that we would lose about 5-8 votes at the most.
Although we were late starters. (Posted our profile only on Friday 10th July 2009) We did receive an indication of being contenders for the Top 100 the same evening) In 7 days up until Friday 17 July midnight we had 263 Votes and 25 testimonials.
Thank you for the thankless and excellent job that all of you are doing to keep this as clean as possible.
I have been involved with both participating and organizing Motorsport events and I can very well understand the agony one must go thru at the hands of some very genuine losers due to certain unfortunate cheaters. Thank You.

Hi
We’re not sure if this was wrong or not but we had asked all our friends to vote for us everyday from all their mail ids. We of course refused offers from friends wanting to create new mail ids and vote.

But since your rules says ” A visitor can submit only one vote per participant per day.” , we thought that it was permitted.

Another confession, we got one vote from a 5 year old, one from a 3 year old and another from a 10 month old . ( the first 2 were from friends which we found out later and the 3rd one, we may have had something to do with pushing it)

And Sai also did bully some of his vendors to vote for us and i threatened many of my friends!! 

Still hoping to make it to the top 12

Leena and Sai

I love you Mr. Adil Bandukwala, and you know why. Thank you so much.

Hi Team GDC,

No big confession from our end, just a couple of tiny one’s
Some of the above, quite inspiring depending on which way you look at it. Wish I’d met you guys before.. hehe.. 

When I started work on our application & checked the Blog section, there weren’t many. One on the new CEDIA getting ready to hit the road & one on people not getting e-mail confirmations.

So my confession is actually to not have clicked on the Blog link often enough to keep up with all these happenings.

Adding to all the above confessions would be a few, very few of our friends voting a couple of times & us voting from all our existing ids. Nope, we didn’t create any fake ids nor did our friends, but yes they were sweet enough to do our campaigning for us. Vote for Jo & Asha, said many of their profile messages. Thanks again guys.

The take away for us is that my blogging seems to have a reason now, a bigger purpose. & Jo’s never going stop going on about why he should use up every single byte on that camera’s memory card clicking away.

We always thought this competition was an excellent marketing strategy but getting the masses out there to do your propoganda to this extent & in such short a time.. Wow!

Good work Team GDC

Cheers,
Asha & Jo

hi this is deepak there is nothing to confess but to share . As we were late to apply we joined the race on 14th and could stsrt getting votes only from 10:00pm next we shared this with the team we work with [both of us in he same organization] people were ready to vote 4 us but many could not confirm their votes because of some technical problems or so but very happy to be in top 100 as everyone said WE ARE WITH YOU and HERE WE ARE, THIS IS ME TONIGHT WE MAKE DREAMS COME TRUE
HERE WE ARE WE’VE JUST BEGUN…................

I got 4 votes from Ahmad Pirani, a couple from Ajinkya Shinde and two from Vinaya Wagh….. I forgot to remind my mom, younger brother and his wife to vote so lost 3 votes there, my ma-in-law didn’t vote for me coz she’s totally against the year old baby going on the long drive :(.... oh and Sonali didn’t vote coz she felt it would be unfair to vote for yourself….. I found that last one out after voting closed )

So over all no profit no loss! we got into the top 100 not sure how and why am thinking the fact that I killed Sonali in our Travelogue section (“died in the wool SRK fan” instead of “dyed in the wool SRK fan” influenced the jury to think we were desperate and would kill to get in and they made a sympathetic gesture….. we’re not thaaaat desperate is another matter).

well an hour and 35 minutes to go for top12… not at all hopeful of figuring there but then top100 for social recluses like us is a sign! We can project an appealing image

-imtiaz

Howsoever much you guys might want to deny it the fact of the matter is that in the first half of the voting your website was flawed and it didnt accept genuine votes

I knew so many of my friends who voted but did’nt get acknowledgement .. despite repeated attempts

You see people will vote for you at your behest only once or maybe twice .. if they keep getting the same error message they will lose interest .. and it is a bit awkward to ask them again to vote

If you guys had doubt in seperating fake votes from genuine votes then you should have removed the vote and testimonial criteria itself during shortlisting, on moral grounds

Also, you should have displayed the sequence of couples in order of their overall marks derived from all criterias rather than votes alone so that guys could see where they stand ..  can you really make your marking system of all couples public .. I’m sure you will not do that as it will expose your flawed evaluation