Lees Race Report

Now that they have the results pages up, I guess it's a good time to give a brief, or maybe not so brief, race report.

Heading in to this year's championships, we decided that we really wanted to give it the best shot we could. The first year in Las Vegas we honestly went in just happy to have won a free trip! We were pretty shocked to even make the Magnificent 7 and even more shocked to do as well in the Finals as we did. Going in to New Orleans last year we were hoping that the previous year wasn't just a fluke. I guess it wasn't. Both of those results and our success in the two Twin Cities races and the St. Louis race gave us confidence that we really had a legitimate chance to win the whole thing and take that $50,000 check back home.

Due to some unexpected time off and a great deal on a hotel, we were able to head down to Miami several days before the race. It was definitely nice to get down there and see the different areas of the city. We had read a couple travel books and looked on the web a bit, but seeing things in person was a lot better! Apparently quite a few other teams had the same idea as we started running in to teams we knew or caught glimpses of duos that we assumed had to be other racers. UC'ers definitely stand out a bit - maybe it's the Camelbaks, notepads, and laminated maps? It was nice though to just wander the city during the day and then have dinner with some other teams at night. After one particular night out with another Mag 7 team from last year we were pretty sure that if one of the clues was "where the best place to get drunk on sake bombs" is, that we'd know exactly where to go.

This year we had 5 people on our support team - in the Twin Cities we had my sister Janet and her friend Johannah, while my other sister Laura, her boyfriend Terrence, and their friend Mark called in from Boston where they all happened to be for the weekend. Laura and Terrence have raced 3 UC races before and Janet has been internet support for a bunch of races, but the other two had pretty much no idea what they were in for. When the semi-finals started we did so-so on the trivia and started in wave 4. With a lot of help from our support team we burned through the first bunch of checkpoints with no problem and very rapidly. Hopping a bus over to downtown Miami we continued racking up the checkpoint...until we got to checkpoints 9, 10 and 11 and some trouble. No matter what we did we couldn't figure out #9 or #10, and the address for #11 made no sense. Luck was on our side though as we started wandering around aimlessly and stumbled across teams leaving what we figured out was #9. The same thing happened while we tried to figure out #11 as we saw our sake bomb friends leaving #10. So skipping #11 we hopped back on the bus towards Miami Beach trying to solve #12. In what must be one of the most bizarre coincidences in the history of Urban Challenge, we solved the clue in completely the wrong way, as did a lot of other teams. What should have been converted into a phone number was instead unscrambled into something that led to the same business as the phone number! With that additional bit of luck we quickly finished off our checkpoints and headed for the finish line, where we learned we were 2nd across the line. We soon, or actually eventually, learned that all our photos were good and that we were indeed back in the Magnificent 7. Unfortunately quite a few teams were DQ'd over one question, one that our support team had debated as well. In fact I think 4 out of the first 7 teams across the line were DQ'd, all of them very strong teams.

Now that we knew we were in the Magnificent 7 once again, we quickly set out to recharge our cell phones, grab some food, and clean up a bit. Our support team also had to chill out a bit and then get ready. I sometimes think it's more stressful being on internet support because you don't quite know exactly what's going on the whole race. The Minneapolis crew grabbed some food and relax while the Boston crew ran off to tailgate at a football game for a bit to relax. After what seemed like far too short a time to recover it was time to meet up with the other Magnificent 7 teams and pile into the van that was going to take us to the surprise starting line. Meeting the other teams it was no surprise to find out that they all were very experienced at UC. One team, the Grahams, had been in the other two Mag 7s as well (and aren't called "The Googles" for nothing) and "Good N You" had been in last years Mag 7. Those two teams had each won multiple local races. But the other teams were all very experienced too. Two of them, SamFer and Dynamic Health Racing were part of the famed Austin mob which first year UC champs Team Vignette (the Beards) were part of. One team had two very fast runners, one of whom had been ground support and run basically the enter race with last year's champs Fluffy Bunny, plus we knew that they had a strong support team. And the other team, Team All In had done even more UC races than any of the rest of us. It looked like it would be another tough race.

As we drove through the city, it soon became apparent to some of us that we were likely heading to Coconut Grove. Cathy and I would be pretty happy if that were indeed true, as we had had lunch out there just a couple days before and had taken the opportunity to walk around the main area a little bit. As we came up to the street where we would likely turn if we were going to Coconut Grove I pointed out an interesting business name on the corner that I had seen before. Fortunately, none of the other teams heard me, as it later turned out to be checkpoint #6! We did turn down that street and after another mile or so ended up at a little park on the bay. Apparently all the other teams had been busy re-hydrating too as EVERYONE was anxious to hop out of the van and water the bushes. The same thing has happened every year and is quite a fun UC Finals tradition now.

With everyone a little lighter now, the UC staff got us all organized and ready to start the trivia. The trivia for the finals is a little different than for the semifinals. There are 15 questions total with the last 5 being sudden death tie-breakers. Once again we guessed wrong on a couple of toss-up questions and after going through an extended tie-breaker quiz-off with the Grahams (encompassing Spongebob Square Pants and the Berlin Wall) we learned we would be heading out in 5th place, a 12 minute handicap. I think that's the same position we were in last year, so we knew we would have a little deficit to make up, but also that it was very doable. Those 12 minutes seemed to take forever, but when they were finally up we grabbed our gear, the new LG camera phone we had to figure out, and the clue baton and plopped onto the ground. The first two checkpoints were pretty involved and took quite awhile. Each one required a precise answer so it was definitely worthwhile to be absolutely sure of it. We definitely did not want to end up DQ'ing on a simple mistake. We finally got those all figured out and ran to those checkpoints. Checkpoints #3 and #4 were quickly solved and Checkpoint #5 was simple once we were finally able to locate a specific placard at the Marina. Then it was off to Checkpoint #6 which I had spotted before and then to catch the MetroRail back to Miami.

At this point in the race we weren't quite sure where we were position-wise. We knew we had to be ahead of several of the teams, but we hadn't seen a couple of the teams who had started before us. The next step was to take the MetroRail back in to Miami. As we waited for the next train, we anxiously peeped over the edge of the train platform to see if any other teams were running up the street. After a few minutes, the train arrived, but no other teams did. When it started to leave we were happy that we would be at least 15 minutes ahead of the teams behind us, but were also worried that we were maybe 15 or 30 minutes behind someone else! While on the train we feverishly worked on the remaining checkpoints. We also had to figure out how many different people have been in the Mag 7 and then text message that number in to find out who our skip person (who'd be near the finish line) was. Having been in all the Mag 7s, that was pretty simple for us as were four of the remaining six checkpoints. So assuming we could find the skip person we would still need to figure out one of the two checkpoints we didn't know. One of those we would get more info on from the skip person, so it became obvious that we should go find our skip person at the finish line, which also turned out to be Checkpoint #7.

When we got to the MetroRail stop in downtown Miami we thought that it would be quicker to take the MetroMover system, now running again, to get to a bus stop than to wait for a bus to leave from that stop. So we ran to the MetroMover platform, waited a couple minutes, and hopped on board. On board a car going to the wrong place! We quickly figured that out, hopped off, backtracked on another car, then transferred to a different line and finally ended up where we wanted to be. Our luck from the morning held out though, as a bus appeared a couple minutes later. A short ride across the causeway and we hopped off the bus and ran the few blocks to The Clevelander. It was chaos there! Some people thought we must be done racing, some knew we were just part way through the race, but everyone was cheering wildly. It might have been for the girls on stage, but they were cheering. Loud and crowded are not a good combination when you are trying to find a specific person in a bar. Fortunately Cathy just made a bee-line towards the stage and along the way I spotted our skip person. We showed him the picture, he confirmed it was him, we snapped a picture, I grabbed the envelope with the additional checkpoint clue, and we were out of there in about 3 or 4 minutes! On the way out I thought to ask someone if anyone else had been through yet. They said no and at that point we realized just how close to winning the whole thing we were getting.

Now that we had the additional clue the skip had given us we decided that we'd skip #8. We ran to #9 to take our picture and then set out to solve our last unknown clue, #10. The envelope the skip person had given us led us to a web page on urbanchallenge.com. On it was a picture of a door and instructions telling us to find that door within a certain area of South Beach. Cathy and I split up and tried to find what our support crew was describing over the phone. We just couldn't find it though! After a few more minutes of desperate searching though, our support team came through in a big way and identified a logo on the door and found an address. It was just a block away, so we quickly ran there and took our picture. Checkpoint #11 was a grammar question and we were lucky to have a bunch of veritable SAT verbal test all-stars on our support team. With them all confident in the correct answer we started running to the appropriate location and then got a quick scare when we saw the Grahams running on the other side of the street! Cathy quickly realized that they had just gotten back in to South Beach and that we were comfortably ahead of them, so we were able to relax a bit. We took the picture for #11 and then set out to find Mojito's, the answer to #12. We had thought we had seen a place with that name near the finish line. We ran there only to find that were named something else and actually only served mojitos. So we had to run off and find the real checkpoint. By this time it was quite dark and that area was not well lit. We found the place soon enough and tried to snap a picture with the sign. Even with the flash on though, the picture was extremely dark. So we ran inside the place and tried to take a picture with a table top that said Mojito's. Again it was very dark. With no other option I decided to grab a menu, we took a picture with it and it was a little better. Then we decided that for $50,000 we'd better just bring the menu back with us to make sure they knew what the picture was of! The waitress had other ideas though, and really didn't want us to take it. Fortunately she relented and we headed back to the finish line one more time, menu in hand. It was probably only 8 - 10 blocks away, but that seemed like the longest run we had ever done. Had another team snuck in ahead of us somehow? As we got closer to the end, we were almost too excited to say anything to each other. Our support team tried to keep themselves entertained by instant messaging each other jokes while they waited to hear. Their giggles did not help ease our anxiety at all! Finally, we rounded the corner, ran up the steps and raised our arms together as we crossed the finish line. Everyone was congratulating us on winning and patting us on the backs.

Everyone except Kevin that is, and he's the one who counts! He flipped through our pictures over and over and started to focus in on the picture for #9. We told him what we took a picture of and he confirmed that it was correct, but he didn't think our picture looked right. Had we made a mistake? Had we blown our chance for $50,000? We vigorously defended our picture and Kevin's son was dispatched to make sure that it was indeed at the right location. Meanwhile, Kevin wasn't saying anything to us which made me very nervous. I don't normally drink alcohol at all, but at that point beer tasted extremely good! A little while later the Grahams returned to The Clevelander. After finding their skip person and re-taking that picture, they crossed the line. As I watched, Kevin looked at their pictures and verified that they were all good. Were the Grahams the winners or were we? After quite a while Kevin's son returned and showed him a picture on his camera phone. Kevin brushed us off and walked off somewhere, leaving us still unsure of what was going on. All the while people were congratulating us, telling us how happy they were that we had won. The only problem was that we hadn't won yet!!! I knew all too well what had happened the first year with the first two teams to cross the line in the finals and I was starting to get the feeling that it was going to happen to us.

FINALLY, we heard Kevin being introduced on stage. It seemed like he was talking in half speed, but we finally heard the words we were hoping to hear: "the winners, the Oozing Monkeys, Catherine and Terrence Lee!" We had actually done it. Our pictures were all good and we had won the whole thing! The next hour or so was a complete blur. We got to talk a little bit on stage and thanked all the other racers, all the great people we had met, and of course all the people behind Urban Challenge. There were lot of hugs, handshakes, and requests for loans all around. It was great having getting to talk to so many different people. I cannot even begin to count how many people told us they were rooting for us or how they were hoping that it'd be us this year or how happy they were that we had won. It was definitely a feeling I had never experienced before and hope that we are lucky to experience again someday. Maybe for that million dollar game in the spring? :)

— Terrence Lee