The cars headed off at 7:00 PM with 51 pictures, 30 of them taken at cemeteries and 21 taken at other landmarks. The task was to figure out where each picture was taken, a difficult one since there were so many things to be looking for all at once.
Al Kintigh and Margaret Kintigh took first by missing only 3 cemetery pictures and finding more "special" pictures than anyone else, with 19 of 21. They also creamed the competion for first in class B. Joe Huttle and Trina Huttle took 2nd, with Joel Roggenkamp and John Knauss in 3rd.
Second overall went to Jim Granger and Camille Petri, running for the very first time and taking class D honors. 2nd place in class D went to Patrick Munits, running by himself. Leslie Schoenfelder and LaRae Ekblad came in 3rd.
Class A, for the most experienced teams, was won by Dennis Doffing and Kelly Doffing in 3rd overall. They won the closest battle of the night, just 25 points ahead of Rolf Strand and Miriam Strand, and 33 points ahead of Carl Hansen and Tom Griffin. Hansen/Griffin took 3rd by only 1 point over Bruce Weinman and Beryl Ann Burton, who were also only 1 point ahead of Mary Utecht and Mark Utecht. 41 points separated the top 6 teams in class A.
Class C was taken by Andrea Willems and Andrea Hedin in 8th overall. 2nd in C went to Dan MacDonald and Mark Carter, only 12 points behind. Steve Gingras and Jason Metzger were 3rd.
The "best costomb" trophies went to perennial winners Colleen Lesedi and Blythe Johnston for their awesome "scary scarecrows". The coveted "dead last" trophy went to Jesse Mullan and Reade Adams.
The new format using the pictures to find things on course seemed to go over well. The winning teams, for the most part, finished early and spent their remaining time going over the pictures, using deductive reasoning to figure out a lot of the pictures even though they had not gone to the cemeteries.
All in all, people appeared to be having a great time. Only one team failed to finish. Thanks to all the contestants and workers who made the Tombstone Trail successful again.
You can see the event results here.
Mark Larson