Paper: Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Title: RUSH OF TEAMS TO RUN IN HOOD-TO-COAST 
Date: August 24, 1990

The Oregonian Hood-to-Coast Relay is stampeding into the new decade  with a rush and a push that could earn it the title as the road race of the  1990s.


In less than a decade, the number of teams in the race has boomed from  eight in 1982 to the limit of 750 12-member groups in this year's race.And there's no shortage of diversity. One of the teams, Wheelmen Eat Bees  -- Film at Eleven, will be the first wheelchair team to compete in the relay.  There's also The Wheezers, a team of asthmatics, and Sweet Feat, all  diabetics.


In addition, the demand to be part of this ultimate runner's odyssey has  spawned a mini-relay, called the Portland to Coast.


That race will include three power-walking teams.


The ninth installment of the 191-mile Hood-to-Coast Relay begins at 2:20  p.m. Friday in the lower parking lot of Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood.


Bob Foote, founder and president of Hood-To-Coast, said starting times from Timberline are staggered so that groups of 35 teams will take off from the  starting blocks every 20 minutes. The teams with the slowest times leave start the earliest until finally, the group of the 35 fastest teams run -- or roll,  as the Wheelmen will do -- off the mountain at 9:40 p.m.


The 38 teams in the inaugural 121-mile Portland-to-Coast relay will begin  their dash at 7 p.m. in Waterfront Park. Both races end at the Broadway  turnaround in Seaside.


Foote said the competition in both the men's and women's open divisions is  especially intense.


In the men's open division, Foote said, The Killer Bees of Portland return  as three-time defending champions.


``The Killer Bees have a distinct advantage because they know this course  better than anybody,'' Foote said. Still, he said, maintaining their dominance won't be easy.


Two Eugene teams -- The Eugene Team and The Other Eugene Team -- and The  Athletic Department-Black Flag from Palo Alto, Calif., are the biggest threats to The Killer Bees, Foote said.


He described the Eugene teams as elite runners who ``all have shoe  contracts, and most of them are professionals'' who ran for the now-defunct  Nike-sponsored Athletics West track club.


``They've decided they're going to come up and take the trophy back to  Eugene,'' Foote said.


In the women's division, Seattle's Chicks That Crank, two-time defending  women's overall and open champions, again will have to look over their  shoulders for Hot Shoes and Coastline Cruisers, both of Portland.


Hot Shoes, a sub-masters team of women age 30-39, has finished second in  the women's overall race all but one year since 1984. It won the race in  1986.


Chicks That Crank narrowly held off Hot Shoes and Coastline Cruisers in  each of the last two years. Coastline Cruisers captured the last of its three  wins in 1987.


The Hood-To-Coast relay winds from Timberline Lodge down U.S. 26 through  Government Camp and the Mount Hood foothills, through Sandy and into Gresham  via Roslyn Lake. The route changes to Southeast Powell Boulevard in Gresham  through the Eastmoreland area of Southeast Portland. It takes a jog west along Southeast Bybee Boulevard to Sellwood Park, and along Southeast Tacoma Street  over the Sellwood Bridge to Southwest Macadam Avenue and north to Waterfront  Park.


The route continues along Front Avenue north to U.S. 30, through Scappoose  to St. Helens. The relay then heads west to Oregon 202, via Saulser, Cappler,  Pittsburg and Schaffer roads. More twists and turns onto Green Mountain,  Tucker Creek, Logan and Lewis and Clark Mainline roads lead to Wahanna Road on the outskirts of Seaside.


The home stretch along Wahanna goes to 12th Street in Seaside, to the  Prominade and along the beach to the finish line at the Broadway turnaround.