One of 3-year-old Hunter Whitten’s favorite things to do is hang out with his dad.
On Saturdays, this means riding the hour-long Route 1 loop with his mom, Michelle Whitten, and watching his father, Anson Whitten, drive a city bus.
But on March 2, Hunter braved the chilly weather with his family to watch his father compete in the Regional Transit System’s 15th annual Bus Roadeo.
Ten city bus drivers completed an 11-obstacle course on the driving pad behind the Gainesville Regional Airport to test their driving abilities as about 75 family members and friends watched on the sidelines.
When contestant Antonio Cruz was announced to “La Bamba” blaring over the speaker system, six judges with clipboards climbed aboard the bus scrolling Cruz’s name on the destination sign.
The judges kept time, measured the smoothness of the ride and noted safety aspects. Sitting in the driver’s seat, Cruz, 58, hit the throttle and sent the bus flying toward the offset street obstacle. He weaved in and out of lines of cones.
Later, Cruz pulled alongside a row of yellow beams that simulated a curb. The bus stopped beside an RTS sign planted in a cracked 5-gallon bucket filled with cement. “Bus stop,” he called, blaring the horn.
Outside, a team of volunteers measured the distance from the tires to the curb.
Frederick Mayer, one of the judges, explained the distance should be 15 inches or less from the back tires and six inches or less from the front tires.
“The goal is for passengers to be able to step directly from the bus to the curb,” he said, yardstick in hand.
The judges winced as Cruz sped through a corridor of colorful barrels. At the end was an orange cone, and hitting it meant losing points toward Cruz’s score.
The bus ground to a halt, stopping before hitting the cone to finish the last challenge on the course.
“We lived,” said Roy Darnold, a smoothness of operation judge, as he lunged off the bus.
Cruz breathed a sigh of relief after he left the driver’s seat. He said it had been 10 years since he won the competition and was eager to hear the results following his run through the track.
After the contestants completed the course, the emcee summoned the drivers to line up on a strip of faded red carpet that faced the bleachers.
After a decade-long streak of losses, Cruz was named the winner of this year’s competition.
Clutching his trophy, Cruz said he was pleased with the victory.
“I’m just happy to finally break this jinx,” he said.
Contact Kelcee Griffis at kgriffis@alligator.org.
