Urban Challenge... Part 'Amazing Race,' Part 'Where's Waldo?'

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/travel/escapes/10RACE.html


I wish they would have this stuff around here. !!

[tinfoil 0]

Any chance you could post the article in the thread so everyone doesn't have to register?

“- - Sumo is the greatest of sports. It has power, grace, speed and cluture. And most importantly, two fat bastards smacking the shit out of each other. ”

[billo 0]

Come on....

I don't know what the link is you're talking about, but i did already register fo the amazing race...

[Fast 0]

Quote

Part 'Amazing Race,' Part 'Where's Waldo?'
By ANNA BAHNEY

Published: October 10, 2003


N vacation in Las Vegas from their home in Kettering, England, Mike and Bridget Dowsett were standing in front of the New York-New York Casino last Saturday morning when two men wearing floppy hats and running shoes, clutching cellphones and maps, came rushing up to them and thrust a digital camera in their direction.

"Will you take our picture?" one of the men asked breathlessly, as they both craned their heads up to make sure that they were positioned in front of the casino's copy of the Statue of Liberty. Mr. Dowsett, slightly startled by the urgency of the request, nevertheless obliged, quickly taking a snapshot. Seconds later, with a rushed "Thanks," the men took their camera back, sprinted down Las Vegas Boulevard and were gone from view, swallowed up by the crowds.

"I have no idea what they are doing," Mr. Dowsett said to his wife with a bewildered smile.

What these two men were doing — along with about 70 other people running around Las Vegas on this early October weekend — was taking part in Urban Challenge, an eclectic cocktail of a sporting event that is one part "Amazing Race," one part "Where's Waldo?" and a jigger of "Whad'Ya Know?" It is one of a growing number of adventure races taking place across the country, many demanding athletic prowess for climbing mountains and crossing rivers. In contrast to those, Urban Challenge relies as heavily on mental skills as on physical agility, a formula that seems to have broad appeal: more than 7,000 people have raced in 22 cities since its first race in Phoenix in 2002, and a national championship (with a $50,000 first prize) will take place in New Orleans in November.

The premise is straightforward: two-person teams, using nothing but their feet and public transportation, try to beat out other competitors as they hit 12 checkpoints in a given city (and record their accomplishments with a digital camera) before crossing the finish line.

But figuring out where those checkpoints are is part of the competition. A 30-question trivia contest before the race determines in what order the participants will begin the staggered start (a few minutes separates the groups of teams), and a series of brainteasers must be solved if the contestants want to figure out the race's precise route.

Take the Statue of Liberty. Locating it wasn't as easy as, say, answering the question, "What New York landmark has found an unlikely home on the Las Vegas Strip?"

Not quite. Instead, competitors are given this conundrum:

"According to Greek mythology, who caused the first winter? Substitute the number of the alphabet for each letter in the answer (A=1, B=2, . . . Z=26), total those numbers, and divide the sum by the number of letters in the answer.

"If the quotient is less than zero, then the Lion is Checkpoint 7.

"If the quotient is between 7 and 9, then the big bottle of Coca-Cola is Checkpoint 7.

"If the quotient is between 9 and 11, then the Statue of Liberty is Checkpoint 7."

You get the idea.

But let's say you don't know that Demeter brought winter's chill. Neither do most of the other contestants, which is why they come equipped with cellphones, palmtops with Internet capabilities, Global Positioning devices, two-way radios and anything else they think might help them find the information they need fast. Some go so far as to set up involved multi-person, multi-city Web-based support rings for clue-breaking and navigating.

And some just rely on the kindness of strangers. Though the race rules insist that competitors "do not knock on strangers' doors" for help with photos ("People don't like that," the race handbook admonishes), contestants often develop a sort of camaraderie with race onlookers.

Steve and Michelle Behm, teachers from Las Vegas, were having trouble figuring out the right checkpoints, and at one point in the race, their frustration bubbled over. As they made their way down the Strip, Mrs. Behm screamed out to no one in particular, "What is a Mediterranean island and city off of Spain?"

From the crowd, someone shouted the answer: "Ibiza. Party capital of the world."

Off to Checkpoint 9, a dance club called Ibiza.

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Part 'Amazing Race,' Part 'Where's Waldo?'

Published: October 10, 2003


(Page 2 of 3)



"Our intelligence in the 21st century isn't about how much information you can cram in your head — it is about how you can use your resources," said Kevin McCarthy, 41, the Phoenix-based creator of the Urban Challenge race series and a self-described reality-television addict.

Thus, at 7:30 on Saturday morning, while the rest of Las Vegas was buzzing about the news that Roy Horn, the magician, had been mauled by one of his white tigers the night before, the Urban Challenge racers gathered at the starting line at Jillian's, a sports bar on Fremont Street. But this lineup hardly resembled anything like a typical 5K race. Competitors included a 60-year-old retired engineer, a woman two months pregnant, a management consultant who had hired a private investigator and two women in high heels — not to mention a rock-star triathlete, two personal trainers and a Marine officer. (There were also 150 kilt-wearing bagpipers and drummers and 50 candy-colored vintage Volkswagen Beetles involved, but they came later.)

Among the handful of teams to crack the first race clue in under an hour were Blas Elias, 36, and his fiancée, Lexi Smith, 30, who then moved on to the Sandwiched Inn ("Reuben, for example, plus one-word NBC `dramedy' plus abbreviation for a Midwestern state"), their second checkpoint, around 10 a.m. In addition to being a member of the Blue Man Group production in Las Vegas and the drummer for the hard-rock band Slaughter, Mr. Elias competes in triathlons. Compared with those, Mr. Elias said, Urban Challenge is "physically not nearly as demanding, but way more mentally demanding."

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"This is probably more fun because you're working on solving problems," he added. "The other thing is that you don't know that you've got everything right until the end."

This is what Mr. McCarthy, the race's creator, likes to call the "dark side" of Urban Challenge. "There is nothing more painful than telling people who have worked really hard for three hours straight that they went to the wrong checkpoint two hours ago and didn't actually win," he said, "But that's drama. That's sport."

PERHAPS the most highly organized group in the race was a three-team conglomerate shepherded by two sisters, Leidyne Lau, 37, and Lei Lynn Lau, 31. The teams were made up of Leidyne Lau and her partner, Scott Kessler, 38; Lei Lynn Lau and her partner, Rodel Castillo, 31, all from San Diego; and Paul and Annabelle Marlow, a couple in their 30's from Los Angeles who are expecting their first child in seven months. (Mrs. Marlow's pregnancy may have been one reason the couple chose a somewhat circuitous route to get from checkpoint to checkpoint. "We were probably the only team that purposely walked through as many casinos as we could, just to stay cool," Mrs. Marlow said.)

After competing in the San Diego Urban Challenge this summer, the sisters knew what to expect from the race and created an elaborate research network to master it. "It is a physical challenge, but you also need people with Web-surfing skills and good navigation skills," Lei Lynn Lau explained.

Or as Mr. Kessler put it, "Very helpful friends willing to spend all day on the phone with you yelling at them."

The runners were supported by Web-savvy friends in Los Angeles, San Diego and the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as a team that had traveled to Las Vegas with them and set up at a wi-fi-equipped Starbucks. The team's members, most of whom work in the technology industry, had created a Web site just for information coordination.

As soon as the three teams were out of the gate, the clue sheet was faxed to Dan Hanan, a software developer in San Diego and former professional volleyball player, who e-mailed it to the other support members. He then downloaded the bus map, color-coded the useful routes and served as the navigator, chatting with all the satellite support team members online via Yahoo Messenger and giving directions to the teams on their cellphones.

Gene Foltyn, a software engineer who was the point man for the Starbucks support team, said: "Unfortunately our Web center was weak. So I had to keep rebooting." But once he was up and running, he and another friend, Tommy Dring, took over Web-surfing duty, letting the teams know the locations they had to find. "I'm glad my phone has free minutes on weekends," Mr. Foltyn said.

Two other members of the Starbucks team, Brian Parker and Jarmila Balaz, concentrated on the low-tech end, reasoning out the puzzles with pen and paper and proving there is still a use for phone books, paper maps and Post-its.

Doug Fletcher took an entirely different approach to preparing a support strategy for his wife, Mary Brooks Fletcher, and her teammate, Gloria LaCommare, all from Orange County, Calif.

The day before the race Mr. Fletcher, a management consultant like his wife, was walking down South Third Street when he spotted the offices of The Las Vegas Tribune. He had been thinking what the team needed was a local insider, "a Las Vegas consultant," he said. He asked Rolando Larraz, the editor in chief of the weekly paper, if he had any suggestions.

Mr. Larraz offered but one name: Eddie LaRue, private eye.

Mr. Fletcher had lunch with Mr. LaRue, 59, who has been a licensed private investigator in Las Vegas for 38 years and said he had worked for Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Howard Hughes and the mob. As he put it: "I've been running these streets for 40 years. I knew Las Vegas before it was Las Vegas." That was all Mr. Fletcher needed to hear.

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Driving his black Chevy Caprice with a spotlight and tinted windows, Mr. LaRue led the women from point to point, while back in his office, Mr. Fletcher and his 24-year-old daughter, Jennifer, were researching answers to the puzzles and relaying them back to the runners through Mr. LaRue's cellphone.

Even with all his professed knowledge of where the bodies are buried in Las Vegas and how they got there, Mr. LaRue probably helped Mrs. Fletcher and Ms. LaCommare the most by providing them with water along the route. The team finished the race — a significant achievement — but not in the top 10.

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THE 2004 race series will begin next spring. The schedule includes races in New York (June 5); Washington (June 12); Boston (June 19); Chicago (June 26); San Francisco (July 10); Los Angeles (July 17); Seattle (July 24); San Diego (July 31); Salt Lake City (Aug. 14); Lexington, Ky. (Sept. 25); and Phoenix (Oct. 16). The entrance fee is $75 per person, and information on how to compete for a participant's medal (not to mention the cash prize) can be found at www.urbanchallenge.com.

But placing, or even winning, seems to be beside the point for some of the race contestants. What attracts them, then?

"You totally get hooked," said Lisa Redburg, 42, a marketer in Seattle. "It is just so sad when it is over, and you have to wait months for another race."

Luckily, Ms. Redburg and her partner, Bill Henry, 60, a retired Boeing engineer, only have to wait a few more weeks. As the first-place finishers in Las Vegas, they earned their airfare to New Orleans. That was after finishing eighth in Portland, Ore., and third in Seattle this past summer and competing in the national championship last year.

Michelle Millard, 30, an analyst from Sacramento, Calif., tried to explain the race's draw for people like her and her teammate, Sheri Kidwell, 31, a real estate agent, both of whom had raced in San Francisco before taking on the Las Vegas challenge. "You're living in the corporate world," Ms. Millard said. "You're looking for adventure that you can't get. You can't take off for the three-day weekends like you used to. You have to do something that is more exciting."

And really, what could be more exciting than the final sprint through an alley of neon and flashing lights from the Union Plaza Hotel at one end of Fremont Street to Jillian's at the other under the watchful eye of Vegas Vick on the Pioneer and kicks of approval from the Glitter Gulch girl as you weave in and out of parked classic Volkswagen Beetles and groups of kilt-wearing bagpipers sending soaring notes up and down the street.

"When you go away for a Hawaii vacation, you come home and you're like, `I need two days to recover.' " Ms. Millard said. "And you didn't do anything. You drank piña coladas and sat on the beach. With this, I come home with a medal."

Way longer than I felt like reading at this hour of the night, but I'm already registered so thought I would post it. Oh and a

Clicky too

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[happythoughts 0]

A few years ago, there was an eco-challenge. Climb mountains, etc. A former Navy Seal was teamed with 3 Playboy Playmates.

Obviously, they had no chance of winning from the start. All the girls did, from day 2, was bitch about the heat/humidity/effort/sweat.

What should he have done? In his supplies, carry 12 bottles of tequila, a large bag of herbage, and some Xcellent vitamins. Then, get up every morning at about 3pm and fix breakfast. Spend 3 weeks with 3 playmates. Come in dead last and be the happiest man alive.

Then, appear on every talk show from Leno to Letterman and be The Man. No one will ever know who wins those stupid races, but he would be a King.

Instead, he tried to win. What a bonehead.