You Are Team Number Four
Friday night was the last youth event for the school year so Steve planned a big event - The Amazing Race. Knowing what he was planning I volunteered to help a few weeks ago. I sent him a message along the lines of, "If you need help, let me know, even if it's just to stand by a route marker for the whole night." This week I was told he needed me to be a driver for one of the teams.
The whole event went really well. The youth had a blast as did most of us involved in the evening. I know Steve was pretty stressed out about it and there were a lot of last minute changes for him, but hats off to him. He had a couple event involving the community but those people back out, including the local police force which would have been pretty cool. They were going to have a series of tasks for the youth to do within a certain amount of time. Oh well, maybe next year.
To start the race, the 6 teams of 2 youth had to find their first clue somewhere in the church. Once they found that, the teams poured out into the church parking lot and found a car and driver to take them to their first detour. The two tasks to choose from were tire flip and egg drop. In tire flip they have to flip a big tractor trailer tire end over end for a certain distance. So this was the physically demanding, but quick task. The egg drop involved creating protection for an egg out of straws and tape so that the egg wouldn't break when being dropped onto the parking lot. My boys, Matt and Jordan, as well as two other teams, went to the egg drop and couldn't keep their eggs from breaking. After three tries they were penalized 20 minutes.
Their next destination brought them to a road block where they had to solve a series of clues to find their next route marker. I was supposed to drop the guys off at the bottom of the hill, but I forgot and drove them up anyways. Oops. The three teams from the egg drop stuck together pretty closely as we drove from place to place. We were told not to speed, but man was it tough. I definitely took most corners faster then I usually would. The guys loved it. Heh heh. So after solving their clues they were told to head back to the church for a 30 minute rest stop. Knowing I needed to break away from the other two teams I opted to take the back roads and ended up gaining about two minutes on the other team. Definitely a proud moment for me, but it was quickly erased once we realized that the other three teams that did the tire flip for their detour were 20 minutes ahead of us.
After the rest stop, their next clue gave them another detour, an obstacle course or an eating contest. Because of a mix up during the rest stop Steve let the first group of teams go before he had the organizers head off to the destinations. It was funny hearing Steve's description of his thoughts when he realized his blunder, but it wasn't that big. I mean there are always bottle necks in the race where they have to wait for a flight or a place to open up and all the teams catch up with each other. So in hind sight it was just fine. My boys and I caught up to one of the first three teams at the eating contest. They had to eat this rather large piece of dry bread. Not a problem, unless you're trying to do it quickly. One of the girls ended up throwing up a bit. The obstacle course basically had the teams run around a park for a bit, around trees and picnic tables and such. Something simple to keep them on their toes.
The next task was the weight one from the show. One of the team members had to weight strangers in the mall downtown to acquire a total of 1000 pounds. It was a lot of fun watching them accost the innocent bystanders. Getting women to step on the scales was definitely a challenge as was this particularly large guy that would have helps one of the girls teams catch up. Too funny. After getting the right weight they were given their last clue to head back to the church. But I was instructed to drop them off at the bottom of the hill so they'd have to run up it. It's a long steep hill, so it's definitely not an easy run. Apparently first and second place came in within seconds of each other, the first place team being able to pass the other team on their way up the hill for the win. My boys stepped up to the matt to hear, "Matt and Jordan... you're team number four."
So overall it was a great event. It'll be interesting to see what kind of video footage we got. I did some taping during the egg drop and the pre-game interviews. Next year the plan is to have it over night. The alloted time for Friday night as 6pm to 11pm. But even with some delays at the beginning the race was over by 9pm. An over night event would allow for fast forward, yields, and maybe even having the youth find their own way around town. One of the volunteers even came up with a great follow up idea - have the youth plan an Amazing Race for the church congregation. I know they'd love to have a chance to put their parents through some interesting tasks.
Matthew.
The whole event went really well. The youth had a blast as did most of us involved in the evening. I know Steve was pretty stressed out about it and there were a lot of last minute changes for him, but hats off to him. He had a couple event involving the community but those people back out, including the local police force which would have been pretty cool. They were going to have a series of tasks for the youth to do within a certain amount of time. Oh well, maybe next year.
To start the race, the 6 teams of 2 youth had to find their first clue somewhere in the church. Once they found that, the teams poured out into the church parking lot and found a car and driver to take them to their first detour. The two tasks to choose from were tire flip and egg drop. In tire flip they have to flip a big tractor trailer tire end over end for a certain distance. So this was the physically demanding, but quick task. The egg drop involved creating protection for an egg out of straws and tape so that the egg wouldn't break when being dropped onto the parking lot. My boys, Matt and Jordan, as well as two other teams, went to the egg drop and couldn't keep their eggs from breaking. After three tries they were penalized 20 minutes.
Their next destination brought them to a road block where they had to solve a series of clues to find their next route marker. I was supposed to drop the guys off at the bottom of the hill, but I forgot and drove them up anyways. Oops. The three teams from the egg drop stuck together pretty closely as we drove from place to place. We were told not to speed, but man was it tough. I definitely took most corners faster then I usually would. The guys loved it. Heh heh. So after solving their clues they were told to head back to the church for a 30 minute rest stop. Knowing I needed to break away from the other two teams I opted to take the back roads and ended up gaining about two minutes on the other team. Definitely a proud moment for me, but it was quickly erased once we realized that the other three teams that did the tire flip for their detour were 20 minutes ahead of us.
After the rest stop, their next clue gave them another detour, an obstacle course or an eating contest. Because of a mix up during the rest stop Steve let the first group of teams go before he had the organizers head off to the destinations. It was funny hearing Steve's description of his thoughts when he realized his blunder, but it wasn't that big. I mean there are always bottle necks in the race where they have to wait for a flight or a place to open up and all the teams catch up with each other. So in hind sight it was just fine. My boys and I caught up to one of the first three teams at the eating contest. They had to eat this rather large piece of dry bread. Not a problem, unless you're trying to do it quickly. One of the girls ended up throwing up a bit. The obstacle course basically had the teams run around a park for a bit, around trees and picnic tables and such. Something simple to keep them on their toes.
The next task was the weight one from the show. One of the team members had to weight strangers in the mall downtown to acquire a total of 1000 pounds. It was a lot of fun watching them accost the innocent bystanders. Getting women to step on the scales was definitely a challenge as was this particularly large guy that would have helps one of the girls teams catch up. Too funny. After getting the right weight they were given their last clue to head back to the church. But I was instructed to drop them off at the bottom of the hill so they'd have to run up it. It's a long steep hill, so it's definitely not an easy run. Apparently first and second place came in within seconds of each other, the first place team being able to pass the other team on their way up the hill for the win. My boys stepped up to the matt to hear, "Matt and Jordan... you're team number four."
So overall it was a great event. It'll be interesting to see what kind of video footage we got. I did some taping during the egg drop and the pre-game interviews. Next year the plan is to have it over night. The alloted time for Friday night as 6pm to 11pm. But even with some delays at the beginning the race was over by 9pm. An over night event would allow for fast forward, yields, and maybe even having the youth find their own way around town. One of the volunteers even came up with a great follow up idea - have the youth plan an Amazing Race for the church congregation. I know they'd love to have a chance to put their parents through some interesting tasks.
Matthew.
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