Racers Show Off 'Amazing' Trivia Skills At Charity Event

When the red awning with the word "Overboard" on it rolled into view, Brian and Carol Ann Cadwell couldn't scramble off the trolley fast enough today.

Their daughter and son-in-law, along with about a dozen other people, dashed across Channelside Drive ahead of them to the closed business, each posing for a picture in front of the sign.

"Don't get killed!" yelled Carol Ann Cadwell, 51, acting like a mom even in the heat of competition.

Welcome to "The Amazing Race," downsized.

About 140 people scurried around downtown Tampa, Ybor City and the Channel District today for a scavenger-hunt-style event called Urban Dare. Each two-person team paid a $90 entry fee, with 5 percent of the proceeds benefitting breast-cancer research.

Based in San Diego, Calif., Urban Dare organizes about 30 such races a year, with varying prizes. Today's race was its third in Tampa and the start of its 2009 season, administrator Kevin Keefe said.

Keefe cobbles together about a dozen trivia questions for each city. "I read plaques that nobody else reads," he said.

Last year's winners in Tampa earned $300.

Racers started at Four Green Fields at noon and had until 3:45 p.m. to return to the pub after deciphering a dozen riddles like, "He is the Pastor to Power, a preacher who has counseled all U.S. Presidents since Ike came to power. Get your picture with a plaque that shows where he got his start."

"I know that! That's Billy Graham! Franklin and Fortune," said Carol Ann Cadwell, a schoolteacher in Lake County who looked up Tampa trivia on Google the night before and remembered the proper street corner.

The "Overboard" clue involved remembering the Goldie Hawn movie where she fell for a man who wanted to own a putt-putt golf course.

Racers were allowed to phone friends or ask passers-by for help. The Cadwells, who competed with about 10 friends and relatives, called their son, Jacob.

Some locations involved a physical challenge, like eating a mini burger after unscrambling the name of the Fresh Mouth burger joint and a three-legged stroll around the Operation Iraqi Freedom memorial at Joe Chillura Courthouse Square.

"You know how to be in synch together?" an Urban Dare volunteer asked the Cadwells after tying off their ankles.

"Twenty-nine years tomorrow," Brian Cadwell said, referring to their wedding anniversary.

The couple's oldest daughter, Candice Morris, 28, of St. Petersburg and her husband, Matt, tentatively wound up in fifth place, with her cousin in third and her parents in 11th. The family has competed in other events such as the Seven-Mile Bridge Run in the Florida Keys and the Disney Marathon.

"I'm just proud my parents beat my aunt," Candice Morris said. "That's the best prize."

TEST YOURSELF

How would you do in the Urban Dare race? Try these questions.

*Get your picture with the statue of a man who was mayor of Tampa from 1967 to 1974 and then in the 1990s until 2003.

*Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask where my statue is.

*Go to the park with the ArtLoud! art installation called Leaves and Life.

*Get your picture with the plaque next to the tree where de Soto parleyed with the Indians.