The Hamptons Longest Shortcut Race Results Are In!

As we do every year in the paper the week after Memorial Day, we hereby present the results of our annual Dan’s Papers Longest Shortcut Race with the starting gun fired at 9 a.m. on Friday, the first day of the holiday weekend.

You know how people brag that they know all the back roads in the Hamptons and can easily drive east from one end of the Hamptons to the other on Memorial Day Weekend — fast — while everybody else is stuck in traffic?

Well, Dan’s Paper’s Memorial Day competition gives out a prize to the motorists who take back road shortcuts that take longer than otherwise.

The race begins at the Dan’s Papers office building in Shinnecock where the Sunrise Highway ends and becomes the two-lane County Road 39. It ends at the Town Green at the east end of Main Street in East Hampton. There, on the lawn in front of the Hook Mill, we serve coffee and donuts to the entrants as they arrive to end the race. And the last person to arrive gets the silver cup.

This is the fourth year we have held the race. The rules are simple. Entrants leave Shinnecock on Friday at 9 a.m. They must arrive at the finish line less than 24 hours later, at 9 a.m. on Saturday. Getting there later disqualifies entrants because at that point Hamptonites begin driving back to where they came from. So it’s over.

And there are other rules. All entrants must velcro the required location beeper to the front of their cars that race officials attach to keep track of them. Another rule is that when stopping at a traffic intersection, the entrant must take the road less traveled. Thus, driving decisions follow what appears to be a way to get to the finish line faster rather than slower. So future traffic jams come as an unexpected but welcome surprise.

Entrants must have cars less than two years old, and in good working condition, so a breakdown by the side of the road won’t have to result in a disqualification. And at no time can an entrant be greater then 80 miles from the Hook Mill finish line. So, driving all the way to the city before turning around is also grounds for disqualification. That happened two years ago, when the Madison family of Great Neck thought they had won, but in fact, because they first drove all the way to the Delaware Water Gap, then drove to the Hook Mill at 8:43 a.m. on Saturday, they got eliminated. Another rule is that the entrant must be on the road the entire time, so sleeping and eating do not occur other than the permitted two-hour break, which is allowed.

This year we had 52 determined entrants and the winner was the Arnold Beatleburn family of Armonk, New York, driver Ben, his wife and navigator Alice, and their two children, Fay and Thomas, age 14 and 12, who sat in the back of a 2023 Mercedes all-electric SUV with their two standard poodles Honk and Bonk, the entire time.

They left Dan’s Papers office at 9:18 a.m. on Friday passing through the laser beam crossing the driveway entrance where the statue of Dan’s Papers founder Dan Rattiner sits atop a giant lobster. Out on the street, with the traffic completely halted eastbound because of road construction, they turned around to head west, toward New York City — many other entrants did this too — but instead of using the turnaround across the grassy median half a mile on to head back east, they turned right at the Manna at The Lobster Inn onto North Road and went all the way to the canal before turning south to the Montauk Highway 27A near the college, where they were stopped by a mile-long backup caused by a flock of turkeys. Turning off into the winding lanes of Shinnecock Hills, they traversed Sugarloaf Road then Depot Lane and Blackwatch Road, then up to the traffic light at Bishops Lane and County Road 39, where they avoided a jam by heading north onto Sebonac Road past a fire department situation where a golf ball had shattered a windshield.  From there it was on to Millstone Brook Road and a tractor-trailer truck on its side to Noyac and Old Fish Cove Road.

Further along, behind a crowd of 10K runners tying up Seven Ponds Town Road, they came down David White’s Lane, went left on Hampton Road to a two-hour standstill at Flying Point Road, then east to Cobb and a mile-long tie-up to a police flashing-light car pullover through Water Mill. By Friday night they could be found on Noyac Path heading down into a fundraiser private-party valet-parking situation on Butter Lane, then to where a pool service truck had hit a landscaping truck on Brick Kiln. From there it was up into North Haven and Actors Colony Road, where with snapping turtles in the road, they took the ferry to Shelter Island.  Making a U-turn there, they avoided a mile-long wait at the return ferry by driving to Shelter Island Heights awhile, then returned to the ferry and the trip back.

Near Sag Harbor, where a deer blocked traffic on Red Coats Lane, they turned to On the Bluff, Robertson and Division Street, to Hayground Road, down into Sagaponack through Snake Hollow, and Butter Lane to Head of Pond Road, Newlight and Lockwood.

Their two-hour rest stop was at the Topping Rose House parking lot without permission, then down into Swamp Road, Two Holes of Water, and after winding their way east beyond the finish line, found themselves at Barnes Landing and Cranberry Hole Road, where the bridge is out. On to Montauk, they got backed up at Flamingo Road and another police stop holdup at Second House Road.

So going back, they took Lazy Point Road to Napeague’s Promised Land, drove down the Walking Dunes dead end, then looped back for the final run to the finish line at the East Hampton Town Green at 8:42 a.m.on Saturday to great cheers.

Congratulations are in order to the winner and also to all the others who took more than 20 hours, such as the John Duchin family from Park Avenue in Manhattan in their Cadillac Escalade, who came in a close second just 46 minutes earlier than the winner.

See you next year.