The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
(Original article online)

Competitors exercise intellect to win road race

Margaret Newkirk - Staff

You could find them peering at tree trunks near the Statehouse, running in circles near Five Points and pelting up escalators at the downtown Marriott hotel.

That jogger shouting into a telephone in Piedmont Park was probably one of them.

So was the jogger lugging the library book near Little Five Points and the one flopped on the ground at the Carter Center trying to photograph himself.

Saturday was Atlanta's turn to play Urban Challenge, a new footrace-meets-scavenger hunt that has been traveling the country all year.

About 175 contestants showed up about 8:30 a.m. Saturday at the downtown Marriot to take part in the race and get a shot at its $50,000 national prize.

Urban Challenge is the brainchild of Phoenix businessman Kevin McCarthy. It was born last October as a birthday party for McCarthy's 12-year-old daughter. He also has an agent. He'd like it to become a reality TV show when it grows up.

Atlanta is the 16th city to host the game, which takes three to five hours, a working knowledge of Atlanta, and at least some athletic prowess.

After a trivia contest determines who goes first, two-person teams get one digital camera and a list of 12 clues.

The clues direct them to checkpoints around the city, where the teams are to photograph themselves.

They're allowed to run, walk, take a bus or take MARTA. They're not allowed to drive or call a cab.

They can use cellphones, library books or anything else they can think of to help them decipher the clues.

One contestant said she woke up a friend in California at 5:30 a.m. for help.

Support systems can get elaborate, according to McCarthy.

A team in a Washington race had a fleet of friends installed at their federal offices, ready to tap into government databases, he said.

The runners also can skip a checkpoint if they spot and photograph themselves with the "Skip Chick" --- Atlantan Tia Singh.

Runners who found her usually hugged her. "I feel so loved," she said.

The clues can be mysterious, but "This isn't called Urban Easy," McCarthy says.

One clue directed contestants to a restaurant identified with a long, turgid passage from the Internal Revenue Code.

It was the Mumbo Jumbo Cafe.

Another said only "Brought to you by the letter M. . . . a statue depicting Babs and a blueprint."

The checkpoint was the statue of former Atlanta City Councilwoman Barbara Asher, in the intersection of Marietta and Broad streets.

That checkpoint was the race's only snafu. The clue sheet told runners to find Babs south of the Statehouse, instead of north, which McCarthy learned as he watched runner after runner pound away in the wrong direction.

A flurry of calls to the runners' cellphones turned them around, but not until the fleetest had lost a good 30 minutes.

Among them, "of course, was the camera crew from CNN," McCarthy moaned. "It's the first time something like this has happened."

Winning teams from each city will go to Las Vegas in November to compete for the $50,000 prize.

After 16 games, McCarthy knows what to expect.

"Those guys are in it to win," he said as the race began, pointing to two men moving fast. Three hours later, marathoners Jeff Plank, 39, and Tim Montz, 27, did just that.

They said all the clues were hard, especially finding a flag of Maryland at the Carter Center. The yellow they were looking for had faded in the sun to white.

They couldn't figure out the tax code clue either, until Plank shook his head and said, "This is just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo," he said.

"This was a lot of fun," Montz told McCarthy. "This is really a great idea."