(Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)

And now: the final installment of checkpoints from FRAC 2!

Teams were recharging and enjoying their ice cream at Bobtail (well, most of them anyway) when we last saw them. When they were ready to resume the race they called in for their next clue:

Solve the crossword puzzle. When you are done, count the number of times that the letter A appears in the puzzle answers. Add eight to that number. The clue which matches that sum will be your next stop on the Brown Line. Call FRAC HQ when you know your next destination.

ANSWER: Western El Stop (highlight text to see answer)

The trick to this crossword puzzle was realizing that all of the words in it are actually stations on the Red and Brown El Lines, a fact subtly hinted at by the red and brown lines across the top and bottom of the puzzle.

Again, a certain team who shall remain nameless complained that the puzzle was skewed against participants below a certain age; see our prior response to a similar complaint 🙂 Cultural literacy knows no age limit. Also, this was the point where we had to call Team Crossing Gates in. All other teams had finished the course and their projected finish time was over eight hours, so we gave them the option to call it a day. Were it not for their earlier technical difficulties they would have been stayed competitive, probably finishing fifth or so.

Once teams called in with the correct answer (which they could have done at any time after they left Bobtail), they were told their next envelope to open:

You’re in the home stretch! Here’s an easy one for you: Proceed to the Western El Stop. Once there, find the memorial located across from 4732 N. Lincoln Avenue.

Call FRAC HQ and tell us: Who dedicated the memorial, and when?

Also, in small type in the bottom right corner of the page was the following: 2, 3, 1, 6, 12, 5

ANSWER: Richard J. Daley and Gene Schulter, September 10, 1999 (Highlight text to see answer)

4732 N. Lincoln Avenue is the Chicago Brauhaus, though the address isn’t readily apparent. There’s a memorial fountain located across the street from it, in Kempf Plaza.

This was down to the home stretch, so we took it a little easy on the teams here. Kempf Plaza is actually a lovely little shaded pocket park next to Cafe Selmarie that usually features musicians playing and excellent people watching. Of course, teams were able to enjoy none of this, as they rushed past on to their next checkpoint:

Welcome to lovely Lincoln Square. Sorry you have to leave so soon, though…

Good news! After this, only one more clue to go. For your next stop, head north and find the man for whom the street was named. When you do, call FRAC HQ and tell us: On what date did he say those words?

ANSWER: December 10, 1856 (Highlight text to see answer)

Again, an easy one. All of the teams finished this checkpoint in less than five minutes, since if you walked north on Lincoln you could see the statue pretty quickly. Once they called in with the correct answer, teams were told their final envelope to open:

You’re almost done! Make your fastest way by bus and/or elevated train back to the Cumberland El Station. On your way, here’s something to help you pass the time. Once you solve the puzzle, find the answer to the question posed.

For your final puzzle, we give you a bit of Word Evolution. In Word Evolution, you “evolve” the letters in the word by moving them forward a set number of letters. For example, if you were to “evolve” the word add by one letter, you would get the word bee; if you “evolved” the word example forward by five letters, you would have jcfruqj.

Each word in the puzzle below is “evolved” forward a different number of letters, from 1 to 18. All of the letters in a single word are evolved forward the same number of letters; that number is not repeated for any other word in the puzzle. This is a hard puzzle, but there are clues to be found elsewhere.

Here is a grid to help you sort through the puzzle. The letters in the leftmost column are those in the evolved words; the numbers in the top row are the numbers of letters forward that the word has been evolved. When you know the answer to the question, call FRAC HQ to stop the clock!

ANSWER: HOW MANY NO PARKING SIGNS OF ANY VARIETY ARE THERE ON THE TOP LEVEL OF THE PARKING GARAGE? (There are four of them) (Highlight text to see answer)

From the statue, it was now a race to see who could get back the fastest! Team Simbius finished well before anyone, but remember that since teams left in ten-minute intervals, that didn’t necessarily mean they were the fastest team. Down to the wire, Team Yuk, Team Vin Diesel Hubcaps, and Minoriteam wound up on the same bus and train on the way back to Cumberland (in spite of Team VDH almost opting to take the El back downtown, a move which would have been disastrous to their chances of winning).

The hints mentioned in the clue are the three sequences of numbers that were printed in small text at the bottom of Clues 1, 9, and 11. Once you matched the number of numbers in the sequence to the proper line of the encrypted text, you realized that each number corresponded to the number of letters each word was “evolved”. At least, that’s what I thought people would realize. It wasn’t until we were sitting back at FRAC HQ and I watched neowolf2, foxish, and crim_ferret come up with the brute-force solution of trying each word against eighteen possible combinations that I began wondering if people wouldn’t ignore the hints completely. Which is what most teams did, in the end. To his credit, mstegosaurus blew through the puzzle, coming up with a brute-force solution in under ten minutes. They shared their solution with Minoriteam, leading steviemaxwell to try to call in early while still on the train to guess the answer. (“28?” “No.” “None?” “Nope.”). In the end it was a footrace between the top three teams to see who would call in the answer first.

Who called in first? And which team had the best overall time? Read the FRAC Results now!