Dan's Papers - May 30, 2008

The 30th annual Dan's Papers Potatohampton mini-thon was held this past Sunday morning through the back roads of Bridgehampton. While everybody else slept late on Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend, the 340 participants and spectators woke as the sun rose and assembled on Ocean Road, about one hundred yards south of the Montauk Highway at 9 a.m. to take part in this run that kicked off the summer season with a bang as it has done every year for the last 30 years.

The gun goes off promptly at 9 a.m. and the runners, escorted by me in the lead car and a Southampton Town police officer on a motorcycle, head south toward the beach there on Ocean Road and continue alongside farmland, horse pastures, McMansions, and even one of the oldest of our windmills before sometime later reaching the finish line, which is right there back on Ocean Road.

When the race was first run, it was 10k in length and attracted an elite class of runners - few people were working out or running in races in the '70s. That first race was won by Francois Philippe, a member of the French Olympic Team, who was out here visiting guests. He finished 10k in 29:10, which was quite an excellent time.

But times change. Now, a generation later, the run is only 5k and those who come to it are members of running clubs, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters and sometimes entire families and groups of friends, including babies who are pushed along in strollers by their running parents.

The winner this year was Mike Lyons from New York City, who ran side by side with last year's winner, Mike Guastella, for the final quarter of the race until Lyons pulled ahead to win by 25 seconds. His finish time was 16:38.

The overall winner on the women's side was Diana Kena, also of New York City, who finished just 26 seconds ahead of Laura Byrnes of East Hampton. The winning time was 19:30.

It was a perfect day for the race. Temperatures were about 70 degrees, there was only a wisp of a breeze and there were just a few clouds in the sky. Everyone was in a terrific mood. And there were many people sporting t-shirts from the earlier year's races, although I did not see anyone with one from the '70s.

About five minutes before it began, the police shut down Ocean Road entirely, offering the few motorists there at that hour the option of waiting, turning around or taking a detour. The shut down would be for just ten minutes - five minutes for the pre-trial talk given by the starter, Bob Beattie of Island Timing, and then five minutes for the pack of 340 runners to settle down and move into a rough single file along the roadside further down Ocean Road toward the turn at Paul's Lane.

As the runners got set, with myself in my old red Triumph sports car waiting to lead the race and with a motorcycle police officer in front of me also waiting, things suddenly came to a halt as a shiny new white Lamborghini convertible came driving slowly up the street toward the runners, apparently having ignored the police officer's instructions not to do so.

We waited. I do presume that this master of the universe got his newspapers at the regular time.

In any case, with a great cheer, everybody took off at the sound of the gun. We passed the Beebe Windmill, now undergoing a restoration in Berwind Park, we passed the Bridgehampton Golf Club, some potato farms on the left, and then after the turn onto Paul's Lane, past the dairy farm and the horse pasture as we turned up Halsey along the backstretch of the race.

If everything has changed about the Potatohampton since that first race, there is one thing that has not. And that is my little red Triumph TR3 sports car. I bought it from Charlie Brown, who owned a bar in Hampton Bays in 1968. It was just nine years old at the time. I have owned it since.

That car led me through the first race, as it has for all the others. It is still running wonderfully, in spite of its age, though at the moment it needs a new set of front wheel brake calipers (they're coming), a new gas gauge and oil gauge. I noticed when firing it up for this summer that when you step on the accelerator the needle showing the battery charge goes to the negative. But we've determined it's just a wire crossed. Small things.

Among the runners were a brother and sister from Teaneck, ages 7 and 9 respectively. Fully decked out in running gear and attended by their parents, William Hyer won the under 12 boys trophy in 21:35. And his sister Caroline won the under 12 girls trophy in 24:26.

Caroline DeJardins, now of New York City, was sworn in as a new American citizen on Friday, just two days before the race, and finished in 28:02. From Dan's Papers, Jean Lynch, our longtime advertising salesperson for the North Fork community, ran the race in 32:36. Also in the media business and running this year was Michael Clinton, Executive Vice President and Publishing Director of Hearst Corporation, who finished fourth in the Men's 50 to 59 division.

At the finish line, I learned that not only was our winner Mike Lyons a Wall Street banker, but so was Mike Guastella, who won last year and finished second this year. Both are members of the Warren Street Running Club, and for both, their times were a few seconds slower than last year over the same course, a result, Guastella told me, of this year's economic downturn. "We work more hours, we train for your race fewer hours," he said.

I also learned that Diane Kena, this year's female winner, was a member of a rival running club to the Warren Club. Their club is called the New York Harriers. I asked her how the two clubs compared.

"We have more members, they have more talent," she said.

Our oldest winner was Len Scheer of New York City who won the age 80 to 90 class in a time of 43:51. He was grandly cheered as he crossed the finish line, and he was excited and happy, at 83, to have won his trophy. Honestly, he looked terrific.

But if Len Scheer was our oldest runner, he was not the oldest participant. The last finisher of the event was walker Richard Laupiet in 1:01:09. At his next birthday he will be 88.

Race coordinator this year for the run was Ellen Dioguardi of Dan's Papers and we are all grateful for the job she did in organizing the event - the early morning registration, the advertising, the banners, the water stops and the trophies and everything else. Also to be thanked this year is our new race photographer, Dan's Papers publisher Kathy Rae, who spent most of her time running around with a camera and getting as much of a workout as those who participated.

I'd also particularly like to thank the Southampton Town Police Department, which had a whole contingent here on our racecourse, directing traffic and overseeing everything. Sometimes when crime fighting is slow, nothing is better than helping everybody have a good time, and we sure appreciate everything they did. I think they had a good time too.

Another team of people to be thanked were the volunteers from the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreation Center who came at 7 a.m. to set up and then run all the registration tables for the next two hours. They did a terrific job and the profits from this race, which will surely be in the several thousands of dollars, will go to that organization.

For those who would like to see the times and places of all the runners, a list of the participants will be posted on the front door of our Bridgehampton newspaper office for the next week.