City Chase 2009: Were You There?
We might not have won, but we declared victory anyway. I was! Team 469 arrived at Daley Plaza this past Saturday morning for this Amazing Race-type event bright, early and ready to kick ass. After a warm-up (literally - if it weren’t for the 60 degree temperature, the likelihood of my doing that many jumping jacks at 9:30am would be zero), some welcoming remarks and a surprise wedding proposal (congrats Team 606!), City Chase USA President Jason Erkes read off a list of items for us to procure in order to get our clue sheets. We’re pretty sure it was the “item used during sex” that caused the masses to descend on the nearby Walgreen’s - we came to the race prepared, but apparently not for everything.
The spirit of the Chase was obvious from the beginning - a very nice lady handed me an extra package of donuts she found (“something expired”), and I was happy to let another team snap a photo of my tattoo. (I know what you’re thinking, but it’s on my neck. Sorry to disappoint.) Anyway, we had our list together in no time.
We were a little surprised to find several of the “chasepoints” repeated from last year - this was our first year participating, but we’d seen this video from 2008 and heard some helpful hints from past Chasers. The prior knowledge proved useful - we headed straight for Navy Pier to rappel down a big-ass building, and, call me a prude, I declared that I would be skipping strip bowling at Lucky Strike.
These guys were prepared for anything. Two-plus hours after the race officially began, we’d gotten ourselves lost in a mirror maze, I’d exited a tower Spiderman-style, and we both had our asses handed to us by some Marines in a boot camp-style obstacle course. We had a feeling our timing might keep us from completing the race before the finish line closed at 4pm. Our suspicions were confirmed after we took a long detour to UIC-land, only to discover a very long wait to play bicycle polo against a douchey hipster. This guy was the only obnoxious person we encountered all day - even the Marines, while shoveling sand onto our heads as we commando-crawled down the beach, still shouted words of encouragement. This ass was making fun of some girls whose bike polo expertise was clearly inferior to his own, as they continually were unable to score a goal against him. Poor sportsmanship, dude.
When I said "big-ass building," I meant it. We realized that if we skipped this chasepoint, we probably wouldn’t be able to officially finish the race - no single point is required, but there are areas of town you have to get to, and you must complete 10 checkpoint tasks. An executive decision was made: screw finishing, we weren’t going to waste our time on events that weren’t going to be fun. We spent the last few hours of the race hanging from a trapeze, canoeing in the Chicago River, riding horses, and chatting with some pretty rad people.
More than six hours after we started, we finally walked across the finish line and right up to the bar for our “free” beers. Most people we talked to agreed that the strategy required to win - heading to the most convenient/least crowded checkpoints - probably meant skipping the most fun events. Out of almost 900 teams, only 360 finished in less than six hours. City Chase has just posted their pictures from the day here.
We’d be curious to know what route was taken by the winning team, whose time was two hours, 56 minutes and 48 seconds. Those guys will go on to the North American Championship in Quebec City next week, and hopefully to the World Championship in Argentina.
Were you a City Chaser? Which events did you do?