The National 24 Hour Challenge has been held in Middleville for the past 19 years. Every year, we have paid for 15 local sheriff reserve deputies to provide traffic control, especially on the night loop intersections. On January 14, 2022, we submitted our request for 15 local sheriff reserve deputies just as we have in the past.

The last week of April, we received an initial indication from the sheriff department that they may be unable to provide all of the local sheriff reserve deputies we requested for our event. On May 13, 2022, we were notified that they would only be able to provide two sheriff reserve deputies for our event this year.

We immediately started to explore all possible alternatives to secure additional traffic control assistance including contacting eight other local, county, and state law enforcement entities, contacting fire departments in the county, and offering to pay overtime rates to full-time law enforcement personnel, to see if we could secure additional traffic control assistance.

We faced a similar challenge with getting medical support. We have always paid for an ambulance and EMT to be on-site for all 24 hours of the National 24 Hour Challenge. On February 25, 2022, we submitted our request for an ambulance and EMT on-site just as we have in the past. On May 19, 2022, we received word that we would have an ambulance, but they could only provide an EMT to staff the ambulance for 8 hours. We immediately started to look for additional medical personnel to staff the ambulance.

The National 24 Hour Challenge board met on May 22, 2022 and determined that it was essential to the safety of the riders that we have the level of police and medical support that we have always had for the event and that if we were not able to identify additional police or medical coverage by May 31, 2022 the event would be cancelled.

As of May 31, 2022, we had only secured four law enforcement personnel and had not identified additional medical personnel. We had exhausted all possibilities, which led to the cancellation of the event.