And now…The Results!
Results given for each team and checkpoint this way:
| Time for Checkpoint | Total elapsed time | Place in race |
And then there’s the penalties for hints and answers:
Team Simbius: Hint on Checkpoint 8 (Wrigley Field), hint and answer on Checkpoint 10 (Western El Stop) for a total of 30 minutes.
Torgo’s Angels:No penalties!
Team Crossing Gates: Hint for Checkpoint 6 (Chicago Children’s Museum), hint and answer for Checkpoint 8 (Wrigley Field) for a total of 30 minutes.
Team Bi-Bitches:No penalties!
Minoriteam:Hint and answer for Checkpoint 5 (State & Grand) for a total of 20 minutes.
Team Vin Diesel Hubcaps:Hint for Checkpoint 5 (State & Grand) for a total of 10 minutes.
Team Yuk:Hint for Checkpoint 8 (Wrigley Field) for a total of 10 minutes.
| SEVENTH PLACE: Despite being hobbled by technical difficulties, Team Crossing Gates soldiered on and actually did quite well on individual checkpoints. |
| SIXTH PLACE: Torgo’s Angels turned in a respectable showing, doing well until they were tripped up by Checkpoint 10’s crossword puzzle. They still turned in good times in the remaining checkpoints, and fought hard all the way through to finish with a final time of 7 hours and 2 minutes. |
| FIFTH PLACE: Team Bi-Bitches incurred no penalties and braved sore ankles to turn in a final time of 6 hours and 55 minutes. |
| FOURTH Place: If you look closely at the table above, you’ll see that we had two teams finish with identical times. In this case, the penalties made the difference. Team Simbius also fell to the crossword puzzle, and the extra answer penalty moved them to 4th place with a total time of 6 hours and 22 minutes. |
| THIRD PLACE: Minoriteam squeaked into third despite a miscalculation leaving Wrigley Field that took them several blocks out of their way. They finished with a time of 6 hours and 12 minutes. |
| SECOND PLACE: Team Vin Diesel Hubcaps brought home the silver by keeping a fast pace and finishing only seven minutes off the lead, finishing at 5 hours and 36 minutes. |
| FIRST PLACE, AND THE WINNERS OF FRAC 2: Team Yuk! They set a blistering pace and ran through the course even with several teams hot on their heels. They took home the well-deserved gold medals with a final time of 5 hours and 29 minutes. |
Thanks to everyone who participated! We had a blast putting this together, and we hope that you had a good time competing. Keep an eye out for an exciting announcement about FRAC 3, coming later this year!
[Added 09 February 2026: There never was another FRAC after this one, though the prospect of organizing another one is always quite tempting!]
Wooooooo!
I’ll put this here instead of on the FRAC 4 post, but who in the hell decided that Rockwell should be part of cultural literacy? Quincy, sure, but Rockwell?
🙂
Now to get rid of that damn song in my head…
I suppose that we could have made it a reference to Norman Rockwell, but then we’d have heard even more complaints from the young ‘uns 🙂
Thanks for the fabulous write-up! I really enjoyed reading about the race, and the all the detail and formatting was superb.
Wheeeee! That was a fun read. What an amazing contest FRAC is! Soooooo much prep work to come up with all the puzzles and such, too!
Congrats to the winners, participants and organizers!
Return of the Racers 4: Minoriteam checks in
I think we were probably the only team who really didn’t recharge and enjoy our time at Bobtail, though I’m sure was amused by my call for a hint as to what to purchase from the soda shoppe. So when we went back on the clock and saw the crossword, even with Torgo’s Angels sitting next to us we didn’t want to go back out into the heat. Sitting in the A/C was just fine, and hey, this one’s in color just like the Google map clues way back at checkpoints 1 and 2!
Looking at the first few Across clues made my brain hurt, but I smoked through most of the Down clues and realized all the answers there were CTA train stations. So we applied that theory to the other clues and finished the puzzle, not noting the red and brown banners corresponded to all the station names (at first I wanted to put Indiana for 2 Across, but my teammate had already put in Loyola). Luckily for us, after we had called in our answer and got to the Southport station, an eastbound train was pulling up. And we joked that poor would be going just blocks from his apartment, only to be heading all the way back out to Cumberland and/or the hotel before heading back into the city for Bike the Drive.
So we get to Lincoln Square, and briefly enjoy the musical performances by Kempf Plaza while calling in our answer there. The words “home stretch” and “only one more” helped spur us into a brisk pace up to the statue where Team Vin Diesel Hubcaps were camped out and waiting for the bus (apparently was halfway through the final clue) while Team Yuk was still on the phone with their answer. Thank goodness for traffic holding up the Lawrence bus and allowing us to cross the street to find and call in the answer.
The entire ride out to Jefferson Park I was parked in the extreme back seat of the bus working on the evolutions from short words to long, opting not to go digging through the old clues to find the hints. And just a correction: at no point did Morris share the solution with either of the other teams on the bus, but once each team finished their puzzle he verified that two checkpoint clues had the evolution numbers for the first two lines. Sometime along the bus ride my teammate was called in to work, and I had mistakenly left XLI evolved under #11 to read MAX.
At Jefferson Park, Team Yuk and of Team Vin Diesel Hubcaps half-heartedly sprinted to the train station entrance, while I casually walked and discussed plans with my teammate and Morris, who would be boarding the inbound train to go home instead. Once down on the platform, we all lined up at the far west end for the 8-car line, hoping to get on at the front of the train. Of course, a 4-car train pulls up and we all sprint back to get on. It was just before the Harlem stop when I pulled a with the 28 answer to HQ.
With Team Yuk looking antsy and competitive, I handed off the clue folder to my teammate and strapped my sandals to my belt loops. Once the doors opened at Cumberland, everyone save for my teammate was rushing off to the parking garage, Linnaeus and Mirko leading with DaveQat behind me. Thankfully I wasn’t held back by footwear (or apparently exhaustion) when I passed Team Yuk on the bridge and caught the first elevator up to the parking garage. Yet again I “carried a one” and blurted out 5 for my first answer before correcting myself. Once the five of us were all on top of the garage and officially done, we BS’ed a moment and enjoyed the increasing breeziness and clouds before going our separate ways.
Return of the Racers 5: Minoriteam Parting Thoughts
I needed to take more photos, but I need a better camera too. It’s just hard to take in the sights when race mode is on.
Adrenaline and electrolytes are your friends. Doing stretches and exercises prior to the start of the race helped too.
Unless it’s 59 degrees or less, I’m wearing shorts. What you see in the pictures above was not what I wore on the race, but I should’ve known better and dressed appropriately.
Once a task reaches 30 minutes, I’m taking the answer penalty, no exceptions. I also need someone to double-check my math. 🙁
As much as my team needed the rest, had we not taken that early break nor made the address error we would’ve had a competitive shot at the gold. Just seeing both teams who started after us catching up and pass us was very disheartening, and catching up to them but not getting ahead of them left us feeling we were definitely not #1.
I’m still very happy to have placed in the top 3, which was one of my goals for the race. Going shoeless for a good portion of the route was the other main goal, and felt just as good an accomplishment as the bronze medals.
And if you really want to know why my teammate wasn’t pictured above, here’s his parting comment(s).