Outhouse Race

EXPLANATION OF RACE AND SAMPLE RACE

The Great Bristol Outhouse Race runs in a straight line from the speed limit sign in front of Dr. Brown's house on West Street to the finish line at the traffic light. There are usually 3 or 4 entrants per heat. The actual course length has never been measured.

A registration table is set up at the end of the small island between the Post Office driveway and the Merchants Bank driveway. Two posters are erected at the registration desk, one on each side of it.

One poster explains the nature of the race; the other lists the entrants in each heat and the color of the ticket assigned to each entrant of each heat. There are usually four heats and the winner of each heat must enter the final heat to determine the overall race winner. The placement of entrants in the preliminary heats is done by drawing names from a container.

Members of the crowd can bet on their favorite entrant in a heat by buying tickets ($1.00 each) of the color assigned to that entrant for that heat. All tickets are numbered and double, so the purchaser gets one half and the seller retains the other half.

SAMPLE RACE:

Suppose in the first heat that the entrants are teams W,X, Y, and Z. Team W has been assigned the red ticket color, team X has been assigned the blue ticket color, team Y has been assigned the orange ticket color, and team Z has been assigned the yellow ticket color. You wish to bet that team X will win this heat. You then buy a blue ticket from a seller, who is a member of the Bristol Rotary Club and is wearing a sandwich board listing the names of the entrants for this first heat and the ticket color assigned to each. This information is also posted at the registration desk and announced over the public address system. There is generally no shortage of ticket sellers.

The first heat is run, and team Y is declared the winner. Team Y was assigned the orange color, which means that your blue ticket can be properly discarded, along with all the other blue tickets, red tickets, and yellow tickets sold for the first heat. Do not despair--there are three more heats and a final heat to come, and your dollar, along with all the other dollars wagered on this race, will go to help provide scholarships to worthy Mount Abraham High School students. The orange tickets sold for the first heat are placed in a marked envelope.

This process is repeated for each remaining heat, with ticket sales occurring during a 15-20 minute interlude between the heats.

Once all heats have been run, the winners of each heat are assigned a ticket color for the running of the final heat, which runs exactly like the preliminary heats described above.

At the conclusion of the final heat attention is turned to the Parade Judge's platform (where the PA system is). All orange ticket stubs from the first heat are dumped into a container, stirred, and one stub is pulled out. The number on this ticket is read over the PA system and the person who holds the matching color and number wins $25.00. At this time a trophy is presented to the members of team X.

This process is repeated for all other heats including the final heat, with the exception that the holder of the winning ticket stub for the final heat wins $75.00, and the members of the winning team for the final heat get a larger trophy.

A trophy is then presented to the team, as selected by a consensus of the Bristol Rotary Club, who has the best decorated outhouse.

[ Entry Form ] [ Race Rules ]