Super Dare 2011 - Part One
Kevin Keefe, the mastermind behind Urban Dare, stands in front of a group of urban adventure racers who are about to start their second day of Urban Dare’s annual championship, the Super Dare, with a winner take all prize of $5,000. After going over the basics of the upcoming urban clue solving scavenger hunt, he refers to a tennis ball that each two person team encountered yesterday during the obstacle course portion of the race. He states that in Memorial Park, about a block away, is James Floyd. James is monitoring one hundred tennis balls with the race numbers on them. Teams are to find their tennis ball from the day before. As the racers are calmly awaiting further instruction, Kevin, smiling “…GO!”
Racers look at each other for just a fraction of a second before darting in all directions using every available exit from the hotel lobby - where Kevin now stands alone.
In March, The Nads headed to to California to take part in the 2011 Super Dare. It is a two day championship race held in a different location every year. It has been in Santa Monica and Nassau, and this year it was held in Pasadena.
Stage One: Obstacle Course - Sometimes Drodgey just takes off.
After some serious sleeping in we headed to the lobby to draw our starting slot for the obstacle course; we drew lucky 13. We hit the road and headed over to the Rose Bowl to see what Kevin had cooked up.
Upon arrival, we saw the Super Dare set-up was at a corner of a large grassy area full of active children’s soccer fields. After we exchanged some hello’s with the other teams, Kevin began to describe what is about to happen.
In two minute intervals the teams will start the ¾ mile loop with 10 tasks. That quickly changed to 9 tasks because somebody stole the piles of powdered sugar with gum hidden in them that was to be task 8. No complaints from anybody, but all pondered the party the thief was about have with a few pounds of powdered sugar and a bag of bubble gum.
We awaited our turn.
After solving a jigsaw puzzle, we hit the wheelbarrow run no problem, followed by a bag toss and a bat spin. I shook off the dizziness from the bat spin just in time to see Drodge kick in his afterburners to the next task about 100 yards away. I caught up to him just as he was about to do a softball toss. Next we had to make a balloon sword, then complete a word game. At this point the Avenging Narwhals caught up to us, and they had started four minutes behind us.
Blimey.
We finished up and headed to the next task, the tennis ball. After locating the correct ball in the field of tennis balls we were given a strap to bind our legs for a three-legged race to the finish. Just off sixteen minutes and we waited to see where everybody else comes in.
After all teams were in, we peeked at the raw data on James clipboard. I looked at it and shrugged, Drodge crunched the numbers and found first was DIITWI (Dads In It To Win It), at about fifteen minutes minus a two minute bonus deduction for winning the obstacle course. We were three minutes back along with The Avenging Narwhals (the father son Seattle team), San Diego Urban Dare Superstars (the 2010 champions) and Team Sparky among a few other teams.
Stage Two: Trivia, Beer and Food.
This portion was at a conference room at the host hotel. We were to answer 64 trivia questions. The winner got a two minute time deduction and from there each place received 30 seconds added to their time: second place gets 30 seconds, third gets one minute, etc.
Luckily the trivia fed towards Drodge’s figure skating obsession and my completely useless pop culture knowledge. We managed to finish fifth, which put us in third overall. So we stood four minutes behind the Avenging Narwhals who won this portion, with the San Diego Urban Dare Superstars in second.
Some carb loading with The Avenging Narwhals, then we called it a day.
- Tyler
—>continued in SuperDare 2011 - Part Two<—
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