COUNTYWIDE : Huntington Beach Wins Mayor’s Cup

The Huntington Beach Police Department wasn’t fast enough to win a 120-mile law enforcement relay race earlier this month, but police there say that doesn’t matter. They were fast enough to beat Westminster.

After two consecutive losses to their next-door rivals in the desert foot race from Baker in San Bernardino County to Las Vegas, the Huntington Beach police for the first time have won a private competition pitting the two departments for the Mayor’s Cup, police spokesmen said.

The two teams competed against 129 other law enforcement teams from as far as Calgary, Canada, in the 7th annual LAPD Challenge, an all-day, all-night relay race through the desert and mountains at elevations ranging from sea level to 5,400 feet.

Although the Huntington Beach officers placed fifth in their category in the overall competition, they still considered themselves the top cops for finishing ahead of Westminster.

“This is a little cross-town rivalry,” said Huntington Beach police spokesman Ed McErlain. “We will probably never win the big cup, so we decided to have a friendly competition between ourselves. We made a videotape of the race, and we’ll make sure they get a copy of that.”

Huntington Beach ended the April 20-21 race with a time of slightly more than 15 hours to best Westminster, which finished 18th in a little over 17 hours. An FBI team finished the race first with a time of 12 hours, 57 minutes.

McErlain credited hard training for Huntington Beach’s first win over Westminster and characterized the local competition in three words: “Slower than us.”

“We’re going to have to train harder (for next year),” said Westminster police spokesman Robin Capp. “We’ve got a lot to make up. Our time this year was the same as last year, (when) we beat them by 20 minutes, so they’ve improved a lot. We have our work cut out for us.”

On May 20, Westminster Mayor Charles V. Smith and Police Chief James Cook will present the Mayor’s Cup to the Huntington Beach City Council.