2017 TIR Driver Directions & Instructions Important Notes:

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1 2017 TIR Driver Directions & Instructions Important Notes: We suggest having this document, the event maps (online or printed out), a GPS device (and its charger), the exchange coordinates, and a regular map in both vans in order to be fully prepared. For the vast majority of the TIR, vehicles can follow the same route as the runners. So, it is important for drivers to have easy access to the course maps. In addition to the course maps, there is a pdf document called TIR_Exchange_Coordinates. This provides the coordinates of the exchanges so that you can use a GPS device (or smart phone with that functionality) to find the next exchange if you get lost. The coordinates are also on the course maps. Remember the number of an exchange is AFTER that leg. For example, the very first exchange occurs when the first runner makes the hand off to the leg 2 runner at the end of leg 1. Exchange 2 is at the finish of leg 2, and so on. Always get the next runner to the next exchange before the next runner gets there (but do not break Texas driving laws in order to do so!). Legs 3 through 6 are mostly on dirt roads. Also, a significant portion of Leg 16 is on a dirt road. Depending on recent road maintenance and weather conditions, the dirt / dust can sit well or be easily and widely dispersed in a huge cloud behind you as you drive along. Regardless, DO NOT DUST TIR RUNNERS!! Dirt roads at the TIR are NO DUST ZONES! As you are passing a runner, slow down well beforehand. Drive about mph (giving wide berth) until you are well beyond them. If you look in the rearview mirror as you are passing a runner and see dust being kicked up, you are going too fast. Likewise, when you see raised fists and other gestures from runners after you go by, this may possibly be a hint that you may not be doing it right. NEVER PASS A RUNNER AS YOU ARE CRESTING A HILL WITH LIMITED VISIBILITY. Always remember that the roads are not closed. Vehicles not participating in the relay are also using them. If parking on the side of a highway ESPECIALLY IF SUPPORTING A RUNNER IN THE MIDDLE OF A LEG - get as far off as possible, but do leave two tires on the pavement, especially if it has rained recently. NEVER park in a way

2 that impedes traffic (regular traffic or the TIR s). DO NOT DRIVE SLOWLY ALONGSIDE YOUR RUNNER. At night, if you are staying near your runner, use a technique called shadowing, where you drive up ahead until the runner is about 400 meters behind, pull off the road (maybe leaving just two tires on pavement). Watch the runner pass and get 400+ meters ahead, and then cautiously pull out and repeat this process. At night, consider using your hazard lights the entire time to indicate that you are with the race. If any teammates get out of the van in the middle of a leg at night to give encouragement, drink, or whatever, make sure they have reflective gear and use due caution. It s a great idea to use Brazos High School (just east of Exchange 21 in downtown Wallis on Hwy 36) to get out of the van, have some R&R, perhaps take a shower, and get coffee. The school uses this as a fundraiser for its annual teacher appreciation banquet and asks for a modest $5/person donation. If you have a team of 12, you will have van-to-van exchanges at Exchange 15 and Exchange 21 (but you don t want to miss Luke s at Exchange 26!). If you have a team of 10, your van-to-van exchanges would be at Exchanges 16 and 21, and so on. If it is a nice day, it is possible that it may be challenging to find parking at Exchange 31 (north side of Memorial Park near the tennis center) and Exchange 33 (Hermann Park at the Obelisk). See more specific instructions below and have a plan. Starting at 7AM, showers are available at the Memorial Park Tennis Center for $0.75/person. There are also showers available at 6AM at the new Memorial Park Running Trails Center at the entrance of Memorial Park. They have a suggested time limit of 10 minutes/person for the showers, but we suggest 5 minutes! Didn t you just take a shower last week?!?! Just scrub-a-dub-dub harder and faster!! Also in the Tennis Center is a Smoothie King that opens at 7:30AM (condolences to the super fast teams!). Important leg and exchange information is below, so do not overlook the below notes. If there are no instructions for a leg or exchange, then follow the course, using the same very good discretion as always.

3 Leg 1 After following the route, park on Co Rd 343 (before reaching Exchange 1, and do not block the home owner s driveway). If possible, do not park alongside 90A. Additionally, parking on 90A west of Co Rd 343 is prohibited. End of Leg 2 Leg 6 Dirt roads!!! See the notes above about how to handle driving on these. Exchange 6 The landowner at Exchange 6 has graciously allowed us to park on his small business parking lot.. please do so! Exchange 8 At the Kemlon buildings, most teams will be able to park perpendicularly to the buildings, just before the exchange. Please park fairly close to other vans so as to not waste space. Exchange 9 Parking at right Exchange 9 will be limited, so drivers are advised to find parking on Upton (or on streets parallel to Main St., north of the exchange). Exchange 11 Take a right on either S Exchange St. or S Center St. (whichever one the folks from Weimar tell you to take a right on) and park either on Jackson (between Center and Mechanic) or at the parking area that is diagonally from the exchange, on the SE corner of Main (90) and Mechanic. Exchange 15 When approaching Exchange 15 (at the airport south of Columbus), you will see a small green sign that says Co Rd 103, and then another sign directing motorists to take a right to reach the airport. Take this right on Co Rd 103 and then take the immediate left on Co Rd 102 to park at the airport. Leg 18 Eagle Lake is not big enough to get lost for too long, but it is recommended that teams help make sure that the runner stays left on McCarty (left of the Dairy Queen), goes straight through town, and takes a right on Prairie. Exchange 19 There is parking at the eastern (far) end of the Giant Grain Elevator, but it is very dark (so use appropriate caution). Teams should not park on Exchange 20 If calling ahead to team members hanging out / sleeping at Brazos HS, keep in mind that

4 the leg 21 runner (the one receiving the baton at Exchange 20) only has a little over 4 miles to reach Exchange 21. Exchange 25 Shafer Elementary has a super bright neon light sign. On either side of the sign are driveways for 2 parking areas. The driveway on the north (right) side of the sign will take you on the little loop right in front of the school. This will enable you to park close to the exchange. Exchange 26 You DEFINITELY do not want to miss Exchange 26 at the LaCenterra shopping center, sponsored by TROT (Trail Racing Over Texas)! It will be an overnight party with some food, music, and good times! Leg 27 To reach Exchange 27, instead of driving on the George Bush Hike and Bike Trail, you will continue straight on Westheimer Pkwy until you reach Barker Cypress (there is a traffic light here). Take a left on Barker Cypress and enter George Bush Park to reach Exchange 27. Parking at times can be limited, so be sure to not block anyone in and to leave enough space for vans to maneuver enough to get in and out. Also, do not block the runners path that is demarcated by the solid white line. Leg 28 To go to Exchange 28, teams leave the George Bush Park, and take a left on Westheimer Pkwy. Westheimer Pkwy T s into FM 1093 Westheimer Rd. (It looks like you could go straight, but you would be going into a shopping mall parking lot. Take a left on FM 1093 Westheimer Rd. The next traffic signal, a little more than 400 meters after this turn is Hwy 6 Addicks Howell Rd. Turn left and go north on Hwy 6. After passing Briar Forest (there is a traffic signal and Briar Forest is on the left), look for Briar Hill Parkway. It is almost a mile north of Briar Forest, and there is a traffic light. Take a right on Briar Hill and then take a left to park in the parking lot for the 3-4 story beige building with dark tinted windows. Leg 29 The easiest way to get to Exchange 30 is to go back out to Hwy 6, take a left on Hwy 6, and then take a left on Briar Forest. The exchange is on Wilcrest and Briar Forest. Teams who may want to try to support their runner may try to do so by going to the parking lot of the 10 story building that is just south of the Buffalo Bayou on Dairy Ashford. Here teams can make sure their runner completes the second dipsy-do of their leg successfully and can see their runner a little over halfway into their leg.

5 Exchange 31 If is a pleasant day, there is a good chance that Memorial Park will be busy and parking may be scarce. If so, be ready to drop off your leg 32 runner and pick-up your leg 31 runner airport style. Driving the loop around Memorial Park takes about 5 minutes. Below are the 2 most likely available parking places. If neither of these have places (you will see #2 the parking along the sides of W Memorial Loop before you get to see parking area #1), then circle around. Leg 32 To reach Exchange 32, take Memorial drive east into the city. It eventually becomes Texas Ave. Take a right on Smith St. Or, if trying to follow your runner as much as possible, after taking a right on Jackson Hill, take a right on Memorial, stay to the right so that you can take a left on Shepherd to go over the Bayou. After crossing over the bayou, take a left on Allen Pkwy. Allen Pkwy will take you all the way to Downtown Houston, one block away from Exchange 32.

6 Leg 33 Plan to leave Exchange 32 quickly after your leg 33 runner is on their way to Sam Houston s Statue and Hermann Park. Leg 33 is only 3.34 miles, so that s only 20 35minutes! Also, traffic may not move so quickly, so don t dilly dally! For a lot of the relay, teams have taken the same route as the runners, but while it is possible to do so for Leg 33, it may be advisable to take a faster route. So, confirm with your runner that they have all they need (water, phone, directions, gu? whatever?!) and that they are confident that they got this, and then plan to just get there as quickly as possible. To do this, take a right on Main (off of Clay) instead of Caroline. Main is easy to recognize - it s the street with the Main Metro Rail in Houston. Follow Main all the way down until you get to a big traffic circle (it s actually an oval) that goes around an impressive fountain named Mecom Fountain (you can t miss it)! As you re going around this circle, you ll want to be in the middle lane. As you get to the south side of the fountain, you ll have a choice to make to fish or cut bait. You can go directly to the exchange by taking the Hermann Park Dr. exit (the second exit), OR you can choose to go directly where there is likely more available parking by taking the first exit for Main St. If the decision is to go directly to the exchange, you ll soon (in a matter of seconds) see the San Houston Statue, and you will reach the traffic circle going around it shortly thereafter (there are 2 lights Fannin and San Jacinto). There is a parking lot right off of the circle (on the west-southwest side of the circle) that it easy to see it is right after you get on the circle, so be ready to hang a right quickly into the parking lot. This parking lot is undoubtedly the prime parking for this exchange, since it is so close. If your team is leaving Exchange 32 by 10AM, then we say go for it! BUT, the more towards noon (and even more so after noon) it gets, the more likely it will be that this lot will be full. If it is full, you will want to let out your next runner and at least 1 or 2 others (to be there for the finishing leg 33 runner) when you are in the parking lot. At that point, you will have a new choice to either go back towards Mecom Fountain and loop back around airport-style, or you could elect to take Main to get to the parking at Rice. If your original decision is to go where there is more likely to be parking, or if you have already let out your runner (and at least one other) at the exchange and are coming around again to find parking, then you will take the 1 st exit the MAIN ST. exit on the south side of the water fountain. You ll continue on Main for another ¼ mile until you reach Sunset Blvd (traffic light). IMMEDIATELY after Sunset Blvd, there is a driveway to the right. Take it, and then go towards the left of the little median to go into the main entrance here. There is a brick sign that says Rice University with concrete columns and well manicured ivy at this entrance. Vans may

7 park along the right side of this drive. Here are pictures of this turn that you need to make just after (just south of) Sunset Blvd. This is still close to Exchange 33 (less than 0.3m from the Sam s Statue to the Rice University sign), which is close for Hermann Park, but it does require crossing Main and Fannin. This driveway is very nice tree-lined section of the campus, so that s

8 cool! If there are a lot of vans, you can take right turns to get close to the Rice entrance again, and this is also the way to get back out anyway. Here is a map, showing all this! Leg 34 Get to Exchange 34 by taking Main south and then taking a left on Cambridge (going around the Houston Zoo). From Cambridge, you can take a left on MacGregor Way and follow MacGregor all the way until it ends at Calhoun. Here, you will be looking directly at MacGregor Park and the 34th Exchange. Or, from Cambridge, you can take a left on Holcombe (which is the next road after MacGregor) and then another left on Old Spanish Trail to get to MacGregor Park. Leg 35 For the first part of the leg follow the same route as the runner. However, after taking a left on Broad, consider going straight on Broad (NOT taking a right on Huey) and going underneath Hwy 610 here. Runners will be going over 610 by way of a pedestrian bridge. Right after you go under 610, take a left on Fairway to reach Exchange 35 at

9 Barnett Stadium. If you go the route of the runner, to stay near them for support, taking a right on Huey and a left on Askew, then take a left on Juliet (2 streets from the end of Askew) and a right on Broad to get to Exchange 35 this way.if you go all the way to the frontage road, you can turn around and go back to Juliet (recommended), or you can take the frontage road to Wayside take a left, turn left again on the eastbound frontage of 610, and then take a right on Fairway (which may not have a street sign, but it is right where the pedestrian bridge comes down). The ONLY issue with this last route is that runners are just over a half mile from the exchange when they cross the bridge. If the runner is moving along quickly, and the van has a couple of unfortunately long lights (and has the next runner!), then the runner could beat the team to the exchange. A final note about leg 35 for drivers Fairway has these road humps that are easy to miss BUT they are HUGE! If you go over one at regular speed your crew will be in for a bouncy bouncy ride, and your vehicle will likely bottom out. That will make you feel pretty cool. Leg 36 The pedestrian bridge going over I-45 is not towards the end of the leg, so you will have no problems following the route of the runner, and then catching up when you have to go south on the I-45 Frontage (at Southern) to go underneath 45 at Park Place. Here you can decide to catch back up to your runner or go straight to the exchange by taking Park Place to Galveston, and taking a right on Galveston. We recommend that you catch up with your runner to help them make sure they catch all the turns, and then when you get to Galveston, you can go on ahead to the exchange.

10 The Finish While runners take the straight shot to the Monument on State of Texas Vista, race vehicles must continue north on Independence Pkwy to enter by way of the Park s North Entrance (by the reflecting pool). When parking around the Monument, park fairly close to one another so as to allow as many spaces as possible. Also, after taking the left (in the park) the road will be set up as a one way so that the only way to leave is by the small road, Park Road 1836, behind the Monument. Please ask any extra family or friends coming to see your team finish to NOT park around the Monument, but rather somewhere along Park Road See diagram below.