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Motors rev up for trivia

By GENE KEMMETER
of The Gazette
At 6 p.m. today, the lyrics "Get your motor runnin'" will emanate from 90FM WWSP radio, signaling the start of "Trivia 33: All in the Contest."

For the next 54 hours, Portage County residents and visitors to the area will participate in "The World's Largest Trivia Contest," sometimes venturing out into the far-reaches of the county.

By midnight Sunday, residents and visitors will be packing up computers, boxes of books and other items, signaling the end of the contest.

While not everyone plays trivia, most area residents will notice something about it.

County residents may notice a line of cars traveling seldom-traveled roads or streets, a sign that something along the route is part of a "Trivia Stone" clue. The "Trivia Stone" is like a road rally, where teams hear a series of clues on the radio and then follow those directions to reach a certain location.

Those directions may contain such clues as telling the team to turn onto a street named after a president (Madison), then take a right onto the street after the white house with a basketball backboard on the garage.

When a question about a product is asked, stores are likely to receive phone calls and shoppers will see players hurry into stores looking for the product so they can call the answer back to their teams.

Just before 7 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, traffic picks up as trivia team members head for the "running questions," at downtown ShopKo lot on Saturday and to the former South Side ShopKo lot on Sunday.

One thing residents won't experience, like they used to in the 1970s and early 1980s is trouble with the dial tone of their telephones.

In those days, teams could call as often as they wanted, making guesses while trying to answer a question. However, the telephone lines could only handle so many phone pickups at the same time, sometimes resulting in a 20-second or more wait for a dial tone.

Because the wait for a dial tone could affect an emergency call, the contest switched to today's rules, where a team is limited to one phone call per question. Thus, each team has an identification number and it tells the phone operator at trivia that number and then the answer.

The team has to wait until the time to answer the question, usually two songs, is over before finding out if the answer is correct.



	Motors rev up for trivia By GENE KEMMETER of The Gazette At 6 p.m. today, the lyrics "Get your motor runnin'" will emanate from 90FM WWSP radio, signaling the start of "Trivia 33: All in the Contest." For the next 54 hours, Portage County residents and visitors to the area will participate in "The World's Largest Trivia Contest," sometimes venturing out into the far-reaches of the county. By midnight Sunday, residents and visitors will be packing up computers, boxes of books and other items, signaling the end of the contest. While not everyone plays trivia, most area residents will notice something about it. County residents may notice a line of cars traveling seldom-traveled roads or streets, a sign that something along the route is part of a "Trivia Stone" clue. The "Trivia Stone" is like a road rally, where teams hear a series of clues on the radio and then follow those directions to reach a certain location. Those directions may contain such clues as telling the team to turn onto a street named after a president (Madison), then take a right onto the street after the white house with a basketball backboard on the garage. When a question about a product is asked, stores are likely to receive phone calls and shoppers will see players hurry into stores looking for the product so they can call the answer back to their teams. Just before 7 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday, traffic picks up as trivia team members head for the "running questions," at downtown ShopKo lot on Saturday and to the former South Side ShopKo lot on Sunday. One thing residents won't experience, like they used to in the 1970s and early 1980s is trouble with the dial tone of their telephones. In those days, teams could call as often as they wanted, making guesses while trying to answer a question. However, the telephone lines could only handle so many phone pickups at the same time, sometimes resulting in a 20-second or more wait for a dial tone. Because the wait for a dial tone could affect an emergency call, the contest switched to today's rules, where a team is limited to one phone call per question. Thus, each team has an identification number and it tells the phone operator at trivia that number and then the answer. The team has to wait until the time to answer the question, usually two songs, is over before finding out if the answer is correct.