Stories: WUVT-AM "Registration Race"

Before on-line systems spoiled all the fun (about mid/late 70's), Fall Registration used to be a blast. Everyone would converge on the War Memorial gym in order to assemble a class schedule by laying claim to a collection of IBM punched-cards which were literally tickets to classes. The floor of the gym resembled the NY Stock Market as students bartered an unneeded (but highly marketable) "Jock Math" class for that long procrastinated third quarter Freshman Chemistry class which was the last obstacle for graduation.

The Fall remote broadcast, live from sidewalk in front of the gym, was always a grand undertaking. None of this mike-only remote crap, with the tunes and spots played back at the studio. No sir! We moved the entire works to the gym: the 2-turntable remote console, records (45's!!!), spots, jingles, copy book, studio groupies ... everything!

One year, Hokie Bob Ashcraft devised "Registration Race", a radio contest which capitalized on the frenzy. An open seat was discovered in a much needed class, and the race was on to see which of 6 Woovit DJs would win the race to claim the ticket. The designated caller would pick a jock to win. The race was run by playing one of the cuts from a set of carts that had a random mix of 36 races (each jock won 6 races).

There was a clue given to the DJ early in the race in order to provide time to load either the "Win" or "Lose" cart to be played when the race was done. The Second DJ mentioned in the race "play-by-play" was always the winner.

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