ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, February 6, 1996              TAG: 9602060083
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C-4  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: GLOUCESTER
SOURCE: Associated Press 

IN A ROAD RALLY WITH A TWIST, RACERS HEAD FROM VIRGINIA TO COSTA RICA

Nine teams traveling in everything from an old school bus to the latest sport/utility vehicle have embarked on a 5,500-mile scavenger hunt to Central America.

The international road rally, sponsored by Gloucester entrepreneur Catesby Jones and his Peace Frogs clothing company, offers a $10,000 prize to the winner. Jones threw a party Sunday for the start of the Virginia-to-Costa Rica race.

``The team that comes in last has to buy everybody else a beer,'' he said, explaining the rules for the two-week event.

The teams were given a list of dozens of possible activities, each of which is worth points. Teams must record their accomplishments with photos, and the team with the most points wins.

The activities include picking a banana in La Lima, Honduras (200 points), and haggling over the price of a song with a mariachi band in Guatemala (300 points). The team that finishes the race first gets 4,000 points.

Teams can get extra points for the autograph of any country's president along the route and by taking pictures of frogs and toads.

Some teams came prepared for anything.

One truck carrying a group of businessmen included a satellite navigational system and a laptop computer with wireless Internet access.

Another team brought 10 extra gallons of gas, spare engine parts, a laptop computer and at least three telephones, along with food and water.

But other contestants were more relaxed.

``This is low-budget right here,'' Jeff Watkins of Newport News said of his 1985 station wagon. ``We're going to walk away from this.''

Daniel Steinberg, the driver of the Team Taca school bus with cattle horns above the windshield, defended the vehicle, despite its lack of a first gear.

``We may not be technologically superior, but we have our wits about us,'' Steinberg said. ``And we have a football, a soccer ball and a Frisbee.''

A 9-year-old economy car carrying Damian Horne and Darren McMurtrie already had 216,763 miles on the odometer and had made one trip to Mexico. They carried no food or water - not even a spare tire.

``There'll be water in Texas,'' said McMurtrie, a Williamsburg architect.

LENGTH: Medium:   51 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  AP. Team Taca, one of the low-budget entries, is heading
          south in a school bus that lacks first gear but sports cattle 
          horns.