What the heck is the Danger Run?

Well, the thousands of people who go on The Danger Run each year simply know it as “The Most Fun You’ve Ever Had in Your Car!”  For the rest of you, The Danger Run is a Halloween-themed road rally event in which you and your team compete, not by speed, but by using clues we provide in your attempt to follow a twisted maze of streets we’ve laid out in advance. You may start from ANY of the three locations on ANY NIGHT at ANYTIME between 7:00PM – 11:00PM and figure your way through the route by solving the clues. At the Start Gate, you will receive a Clue Book containing five-line limerick-style clues (don’t worry it isn’t textbook thick, just a few pages). The object is to work together with the other passengers in your vehicle to decipher the clues correctly, thereby making the correct turns. The group coming closest to the exact (and we do mean exact) mileage will WIN THOUSANDS IN CASH PRIZES.

Can anyone play?

Everyone except for you. Just kidding, YES this event is structured for men, women, kids, and animal alike. If you have a chimp and think he may benefit you along the way…by all means feel free!  Also, all pets are FREE, but they aren’t allowed into the haunts. So, we advise you to be careful leaving your loved ones in the car! Especially Uncle Ned on a hot night!  Our only requirement is that each vehicle contains at least one legal driver.  Come to think of it, we don’t even check for that, but if you try this without a license or insurance and get pulled over, you’re on your own.

Long live Earnhardt! Does speed count?

ABSOLUTELY NOT.  This is Louisville not Daytona. To gear this event in any way toward speed could encourage some people to drive too fast.  Our goal in designing the Danger Run has always been to make it as fun, and as SAFE as possible. What counts is ACCURACY. (Not accumulating ENOUGH miles is just as bad as accumulating too many)

How Long is it?

If you mean distance - We’re not telling (since that’s the whole object of the game).  If you’re talking about TIME, you may take as long as you wish to complete the course.  Without mistakes, you could complete the entire route in about an hour and a half.  However, we would suggest you factor in reality (being the time spent at the haunted houses, as well as the mistakes and wrong turns that are all but inevitable).  So, if you have a 10:00 curfew, you’d better plan to start as close to 7:00 as possible.  If you’re a last-minute kind of group, you can start as late as 11:00 PM and feel relatively confident that you’ll make it to the last haunt by the 2:00 AM closing time.

Do I bang on the door if I take too long and make it to the Haunted House too late?

No, ghosts have to sleep too! Your Danger Run ticket is good for admission ANY night the Haunted House is open. The haunts dates and hours vary and can be confirmed either on the door of the attraction or on their website.

Why in the world would I want to do this?

Because it is fun for all and the greatest event on the planet! Not to mention it saves you a bundle on an entire night of Halloween fun! Only $14.95 for 2 Enormous, Scary Haunts is insanely cheap…not to mention the FREE FOOD and if you’re an over achiever (4 tickets or more) FREE GAS!  … And, oh yeah, you could be our next huge cash prize winner!

So why doesn’t EVERYONE do this?

That’s what we’re trying to figure out!  Our best guess is that the vast majority of people who don’t go on Danger Run are those who don’t know about Danger Run!  Fortunately for you, if you’re reading this, you no longer fall into this category of the tragically uninformed, so we’ll see you soon.  We keep some pretty detailed records on this stuff, and these records show that over 80% of our customers are repeat customers.  There’s a good chance that if you do this once, you’ll do it every year.  We’ve been at this for 13 years now, and even though thousands of people like you show up each season, we have no interest in being the “best kept secret in Louisville”, so do us a favor and tell your friends.

How did you come up with this idea?

We didn’t.  We just took the concept of the older-style ghost runs, and made it infinitely better.  You can see the full explanation on our HISTORY page.

Does anyone really win the money?

Even if you’ve never won anything in your life, HERE’S YOUR CHANCE!  Yes, people just like you win the money every year. Check out our WINNERS page to see the pictures and names of all the top survivors of the run. You could be NEXT!  If you happen to know any of the winners, it may be helpful for you to bring them along for the ride.

How are Winners Determined?

We take all the mileage sheets, stack them up, and then throw them down a tall flight of stairs. The mileage sheet that makes it furthest is the winner! (Not really).  We painstakingly calculate the mileage traveled by each vehicle, as reported on the registration forms, and compare it to the official distance of the route the vehicle was on (there are 8 different routes, by the way).  The three groups finishing closest are declared the winners.

What about ties?

We do have ties.  We also have tiebreakers.  The goal with the tiebreaker is that each group controls their own destiny.  There is no “random draw”.  The exact nature of this tiebreaking procedure varies from year to year, but is always designed to reward the players with the best Danger Run skills (logic, reasoning, perception, etc.).  But first things first: Make sure you nail the mileage, or the tiebreaking procedure won’t matter much to you.

If the “Official Mileage” is so important, how do we know YOU got it right?

Because this is what we do.  You wouldn’t BELIEVE what we go through to determine the official mileage (but just for kicks, we’re gonna tell you anyway).  We measure, verify, and re-verify the EXACT distance of ALL Danger Run Courses VERY CAREFULLY. Official mileage is determined by driving each course four times, using four different vehicles ranging in size and age, and by averaging the distance traveled, as indicated by the beginning and ending odometer readings on each vehicle used. This figure is then confirmed by driving the course a fifth time in a 2007 vehicle with a digital trip odometer. Any vehicle recording a distance which varies by more than 3/10ths of a mile from the next nearest reading is considered defective and is replaced by another similar vehicle to be used in the mileage determination process. Once this process is complete, we re-confirm our total mileage reading for each course through a Military Satellite Navigation and Global Positioning System (GPS) capable of measuring each course's distance to the nearest 1/100th of a mile. Yes, this takes a long time, but we do it all just for you.

Will this interrupt Happy Hour?

No, we think Happy Hour is generally 5:00PM. You can start anytime between 7:00PM – 11:00PM on ANY of the nights we are open. Time for an obligatory note of caution:  We do NOT condone drinking and driving.  Also, please remember that police officers ARE patrolling the routes, and they won’t give you any slack just because you’ve got a Danger Run clue book in your lap.  Just make sure you have a Designated Driver there Braveheart.

I’m lost already, where (and when) do I start?

You can choose from three convenient Start Gate locations, in hopes that you’ll be kept in the area of town you know best (at least for  a while):

LOWE’S OF CLARKSVILLE 1350 Veteran’s Parkway Clarksville, IN 47129
LOWE’S OF SOUTHWEST LOUISVILLE 6651 Dixie Highway Louisville, KY 40258
LOWE’S OF EAST LOUISVILLE 501 South Hurstbourne Parkway Louisville, KY 40222

Click on any of the above to get directions directly from your house! You can start ANY NIGHT AT ANYTIME between 7:00PM – 11:00PM for an entire night of enjoyment for you and your family and friends on any of the following nights:

Do I have to go EVERY night or weekend?

We’d love it if you did, but no… We said ANY night.  You can certainly go as often as you like, but the whole thing is done in any single night you choose.  For shorter lines at the Start Gates and haunted houses, we’d suggest you come on a Friday, as Saturdays tend to be much busier.

Money? This costs money? Did you say $14.95 PER PERSON or PER CARLOAD?

As much as we would love to provide a free event to all of our Danger Run patrons, somebody’s gotta pay for this thing.  With Halloween Events increasing in price each year, we at the Danger Run pride ourselves for giving you an UNBELIEVABLE value for your money:  Let’s start with over $25 worth of haunted houses.  Throw in FREE FOOD from Dairy Queen with every paid admission, $10 of FREE GAS from Speedway (if you have 4 or more people in the car), your chance to WIN THOUSANDS of dollars in CASH, not to mention a full evening of entertainment and fun like nothing else on earth, all for just $14.95 (that’s per person, not per carload).

Which haunted houses are included on The Danger Run?

Back by popular demand, Bobby’s Scary Farm of Demented Chickens, and the Haunted Laundry Room!  Come on… If you knew what houses were included it would take the fun out of finding them! As you will see many times throughout this site, our never-ending mission is simply to make The Danger Run the “event YOU want it to be”. We take nothing is more seriously than your feedback and opinions.

Your feedback last year was extremely positive regarding the clues, course design and event as a whole.  When it came to the specific issue of the included haunts, however… well… not so much.  So, we went back to the drawing board, and are pleased to announce two all-new haunted attractions are included in this years Danger Run lineup.  But not only two new haunts, we have put together the strongest combination of haunts ever found on Danger Run!  (We won’t tell you exactly which they are… That would ruin the surprise), but the combined retail value of the included haunts alone (if purchased separately) is twice the cost of the Danger Run ticket!

I’m a big chicken… Do I HAVE to go inside the haunted houses?

Good news for chickens… You do not have to go into either of the haunted houses. Lots of people enjoy The Danger Run each year “guarding the car” while the braver souls in their group venture into the haunts.  The Danger Run rocks, even without the haunted houses (and offers those with all the courage of a five year-old girl something to do for Halloween).

OK… I’m NOT a chicken, but I’m always looking for a bargain.  Can I just buy Danger Run tickets and “skip” the run itself and use the tickets for discounted haunted house admission?

There are people that have figured out that The Danger Run ticket is by far the most economical way to visit the included haunts, even if they never intend to solve the first clue.  While we can do nothing to stop this practice, we discourage it.  Why?  Because the Danger Run is the best part of the ticket, why would you skip the best part? That’s like ordering a Steak and eating only the A-1 sauce.  However, if you do decide to take this route, the Haunted House locations are printed upside down and backwards in your Clue Book so that you may go straight to the haunts. 

What if I get lost?

Don’t worry… Nobody ever gets lost on this thing.  If you find yourself crossing into Mexico…then yeah… We’d say you’re lost.  Barring that, don’t jump to conclusions too quickly.  Danger Run clues are written to keep you on the “edge of lost” all night, and to make you feel like you’re lost, even when you’re not (we’re tricky like that).  You’ll find that ending up in the middle of nowhere is half the fun, lost or not.  In your clue book, you will see several “Safe Zones”.  These are spots in the book that are marked with the exact street address of where you should be right then by following the clues.  You can use these Safe Zones in one of two ways:  Either as triumphant confirmation that you are still on course as you high-five everyone else in the car, or as a place to go (when lost) to get back on track.  If you fall into the later category, your mileage will be shot, but you can still resume the route from that point and have fun solving more clues.  If you’ve been lost so many times, or you’re lost so badly that you don’t WANT to solve anymore clues (that never happens either), you will find the addresses to both haunted houses printed upside-down and backwards somewhere in the clue book.

This will be our first Danger Run.  What advice do you have for us?

We dunno, we just write the thing. Our advice: (1) Drive like you have some sense (2) read each clue all the way through before attempting to solve any part of it.  Clues are 5 lines long, and sometimes you need the info in the 5th line BEFORE the info in the 1st line.  (3) Make sure you pick a good team. Check our TIPS page for some amusing tips on the types of teammates you do and don’t want, and (4) Remember that a “POTS” is a STOP sign spelled backwards.

This would be fun to work on - Do you need any help?

Yeah, we are tired. Here, you can have it! Long hours and a lot of brain power go into putting this beast together, but we are willing to pull it off just for you!  Unfortunately, at this time we’re not looking for any other help to put it together (unless, of course, you’re willing to work for free).  Wanna be a clue-writer?  Check out our promotions page and find out how you can submit your very own clue to be published on this year’s Danger Run! Check out the PROMOS for details.

So, if I don’t get lost what can we win?

The never-ending admiration and envy of your friends, and a story to tell for a long time (please refer to “The Spinner” on our TIPS page), and oh yeah… these CASH PRIZES!

1st Place - $2,000
2nd Place- $500

Where can I get more information?

What else could you POSSIBLY want to know?  No, really, if you have a question that wasn’t addressed here (or it was, but you missed it), please ask!  The easiest way to do this is by logging onto our all new Message Board.  You’ll find that the Danger Run Community is very helpful, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly someone will come to your aid.  Alternatively, if you don’t want your question to be the subject of public scrutiny, you may visit our CONTACT US page to send your question/comment to us via private email.

You can also call our 24 hour, toll free Fright Line at 1-866-268-8595.

Danger Run 14... The Most Fun You’ve Ever Had in Your Car!

With Admission! Learn More...

With Admission! Learn More...

With Admission! Learn More...

Check out our Promos Page for other Haunted Events and Awesome Freebies! Learn More...

Look here for all the Danger Run News! Learn More...

Check out some of the other local events!