Posted on: Friday, June 7, 2002

Bus drivers go for broke at 'Roadeo'

By Mike Leidemann
Advertiser Transportation Writer

Operator Ioane Liufau negotiates a series of narrowly spaced traffic cones during the bus "Roadeo." Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser

Lincoln Alvarez had butterflies in his stomach.

Twenty-five competitors already had given it their best shot, and just a few more challengers were waiting to make their charge before the winner would be crowned.

So Alvarez took a few deep breaths and headed off on a run that could land him in the national championships later this year in Las Vegas.

Then the wheels of his 40-foot bus clipped a big orange cone and Alvarez knew his dreams of being Honolulu's best bus driver were dashed again for at least one more year.

"I choked. I blew it. You just get one shot, and I didn't do well from the very start," said Alvarez, who twice before has been the runner-up in the annual bus operators "Roadeo" competition sponsored by the O'ahu Transit Service, which runs the city buses. "I hit that first cone and just started to fall apart."

Despite the tension and a chance to represent the state in the nationals, yesterday's roadeo at the new bus facility in Pearl City was more about friendship and camaraderie than competition.

"It's all laughs and smiling and having a good time," said Heidi Denault, a third-year driver who said she always knew she wanted to drive something bigger than a car. "Out here you can hit something and not get in trouble. It's a lot different from being out on the road."

The 33 competitors in yesterday's event had to weave through a course that would be difficult in a VW Microbus, let alone the 55-passenger rigs TheBus drivers steer every day.

Competitors navigate through seven maneuvers — including a slow-moving serpentine course, approaching within 6 inches of a bus stop, left and right turns, a K-turn, an offset S-curve and finally racing at 20 mph through a set of diminishing barrels that leave only 9 inches to spare on either side.

The optimum time to complete the run is 6 minutes.

"It's all about fixed objects and one big moving object," said Marilyn Dicus, transit service spokeswoman. "The overall object is safety."

Some made the run with extreme care, and others did it with panache. No one received a perfect score; points are deducted for everything from hitting a cone to failing to signal a turn to driving with one hand on the wheel.

"You get involved to make your driving skills better," said six-time Hawai'i winner Paul Fernandez, who earlier this year gave up part of his vacation to help shuttle visitors around various Winter Olympic sites in Salt Lake City, Utah. "You learn the little tricks as you go that make you better."

The annual event is a chance for drivers and mechanics to showcase their professionalism, simulating actual road conditions an operator encounters every day (minus the distractions of talking to passengers and dangerous road hazards), said James Cowen, transit service president and general manager.

All the driving is done under the scrutiny of bus company and police inspectors, including gun-toting, jack-booted, sunglass-slinging Honolulu police solo bike officers on special assignment for the day. Then, too, there are all your fellow drivers watching from the sidelines and waiting to spot the least little slip.

"Oooh, he's coming in too fast," said one of the many drivers lounging in the shade, waiting to take his turn."I don't think he's going to make it. See, he hit the cone on the offset curves."

In the end, defending champion Rex Paguirigan, who drives the No. 432 east-west Waipahu route, edged another former champion, Derwin Yamaguchi, to win the title and earn another trip to the national competition. Fernandez finished third.

"Last year, my first time, was quite an experience," said Paguirigan, who finished 10th in the national competition last year, the highest spot ever earned by a Hawai'i driver. "At the nationals people are really competitive and focused on how they're doing. Nobody gives you nothing. Now, I've been there once. I know what it takes."