Some high school reunions spurs thoughts of regret and schadenfreude. The 10 year high school reunion for some Regis High School alums prompted a group of classmates to attempt to ride break the record for fastest ride through the NYC subway system. Stefan Karpinski, Andrew Weir, Bill Amaosa, Jason Laska, Michael Boyle and Brian Brockmeyer teamed up to ride the subways starting yesterday afternoon at Rockaway Park station, and should be ending around 3PM or 4PM at the 241st Street stop in the Bronx, if they're on track (hee!). In order to break the record, they must stop at all 468 stations in under 26 hours, 21 minutes and 8 seconds.
The team's website is here, Rapid Transit Challenge, and there are some nice updates, most recently, "317 stations down, 151 to go. 16 hours and 9 minutes in. We are now at Main St on the 7 Train. We have completed all the stops in Brooklyn, but haven't yet touched foot in The Bronx." We particularly like this graph showing how far they are behind.
Some fun facts: The Daily News says that Brockmeyer just brought one bottle of Poland Spring and Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude to read ("other teammates brought extra socks and toothpaste"). and amNew York spoke to the current record holder:
Kevin "Captain America" Foster set the Guinness World Record of 26 hours and 21 minutes back in 1989. Foster also holds the subway-endurance record for riding the trains for 85 hours straight to mark the 85th anniversary of the subway system.
"I don't root for people who go after my record," Foster quipped when told of Amarosa's attempt. "I could do it a lot faster on my own. They got six guys. The slow man is going to bring you down."
We interviewed Matt Green and Don Badaczewski who rode the subways in 24 hours and 2 minutes - but they didn't stop at every station, which is what the Guinness Book of World Records rules are. SUBWAYblogger explains, "There are two main subway riding record classes: 1. Full-system ride that requires you to stop at each station. (Class B); 2. Skip-stop ride that only requires you to pass through each station. (Class C)." And we thought the rules for competitive eating were complicated!
