One of the races that Dad has done for years that I got tired of NOT being able to do is Baker to Vegas. It's in mid-March and I was never able to make it work to get here. So I moved here ;)
WOW! What an AMAZING feat of organization!! Baker to Vegas is an event for Law Enforcement and it is HUGE! This is a 20 stage relay race from outside Baker (a tiny town on I15 on the way to Vegas) 120 miles to Las Vegas. There are 275 teams involved. Each team has 20 runners (one for each stage) and many, many support personnel. There is a catcher and some sort of crew at every stage. I saw as many as 6-8 crew with a team at our stage. Some only had a few. There is a follow vehicle behind the runner at all times. The new runner has to be at their starting stage in time to check-in, warm-up, etc. I heard about and saw several clipboards with many papers - I am sure all in an attempt to organize who went where when. In addition to all the logistics, someone was probably also in charge of making their team competitive!! We talked to a woman representing the NYPD and she estimated that there were probably 50 people with her team. It's not a cheap endeavor! Many teams appeared to sponsored by local businesses and such - signs on their vehicles indicated this. Oh, these teams are from across the nation and further - the Canadian Mounties had a team and team #3 was from Belize!!
There are a lot of categories within a team could compete - all female, mixed, age-related, etc. I saw a lot of law enforcement personnel. There were teams from FBI, PD, Border Patrol, Game Wardens, Crime Labs, etc. There's actually an episode of CSI based on this race (420 Dead Ringer). Runners were all fit, some incredibly so. Their times for that last mile before they got to us ranged from 6-10 minutes or so. Mostly in the 7-8 minute range I think. The results aren't in at the time I'm writing but Twitter told me that LAPD won again in a record 12:37.
Not only do the teams need to be organized but the actual event is incredible. There are 20 stages with hams (us!), medics, timers, sign-in, traffic control (of teams, not really cars though they did some of that too), etc. At any given moment, with stage volunteers and team people, I'd say there were 50-100 people at our stage. Of course, other moments, there were very few team people so it was more like 20-30 - just the volunteers.
Teams started in groups of about 30, every hour. There were 9 starts! The self-acclaimed slower teams start first and the elite really really fast teams start last. This way the start lasts about 10 hours (with sign-in and such) but the finish is considerably less time.
Our job at Stage 5 was different than any other race I have ever worked. We had some ham folks who set up one mile before our stage. They would let us know when runners came by. We then announced it to the masses so that the teams could be get prepared and all set up in the right spot. There were 3 distinct jobs at our table - take down the info from the early warning guys, announce it to the teams, record when runners actually come in to the stage. It got quite chaotic at some moments!! There were precious few moments of non-activity!
Our little team consisted of myself, Dad, Uncle Charlie, Aunt Patty and their son Steven. Patty and Steven aren't hams (yet?!), but they were crucial. Steven did a lot of the announcing and Patty was able to field some of the team questions (though they didn't bug us nearly as much as they could have!) and give moral support. We commented several times that it really took all of us! It would be absolutely impossible to do it alone and incredibly difficult to do it with just two of us. We were able to take breaks when we needed, shift roles, etc. There were four guys down at the early warning set up. One of them was working this race for the 34th time!!
Dad and I left my house before 5 am and got home about 10:30pm. It was a very long day for us and the dogs (who hung out at my house) but SO worth it!! We got to Stage Five about 7:15am and immediately started setting up. And we were busy until 6:30pm. Time went so fast that I swear I blinked and were were waiting for the 275th team! I already can't wait to go back next year!!
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