Britta Lloyd will hit life's starting line sometime in the first week of July. New papa Ben Lloyd will race for a $3,500 jackpot three weeks later. Baby needs a new pair of shoes?

"More than that - probably a college fund if it's $3,500," Lloyd, a 26-year-old dental college student from Davenport said after being selected as this year's Rhythm City Race for the Jackpot runner in the July 25 Quad-City Times Bix 7. "Put it in a CD and let it sit for 18 years. I think that would be my plan."

Depending on how much of a head start race director Ed Froehlich can be cajoled into supplying Britta's daddy, the newborn should have a pretty good chance of getting that head start on her college tuition.

An elite class entry who has finished as high as 29th overall running the Bix 7's full course and who last year finished 35th, Ben Lloyd is considerably faster than the five previous Jackpot runners.

"Oh yes, by far," Froehlich said. "All elites send in applications to me to get seeded, and we threw them into the hopper."

Assistant race director Dan Breidinger reached into the bin of runners who entered as of June 15, and out came the name of Lloyd, a former collegiate track and cross country runner at the University of Iowa, where he is pursuing his degree in dentistry.

Last year's jackpot runner, Ben Houtekier, was given a 3½ mile head start.

Lloyd's lead won't be nearly as long.

"He might have to run a long ways," Froehlich said, suggesting a start somewhere along Brady Street might not be too little.

"Ah-ha!" Lloyd said. "Well then I am basically screwed because I was working it out in my head.''

He said the turn from Brady onto Kirkwood is either seven- or eight-10ths of a mile from the starting line.

Start him around there, he figured: "I'll get passed right about the turn onto Third Street."

A four-sport athlete who finished fourth in the state cross country meet as a Davenport Central junior, Lloyd swore he wasn't sandbagging for the sake of stocking Britta's college fund.

"I have done a lot of math in my head," he said. "I was thinking feasibly the only way it would be a foot race the last 200 or 300 meters would be a (nine-10ths) to a mile (head start). I don't know how much say I have in that, but if they want to give me three-quarters of a mile, it's just not going to be very exciting."

Time will tell, but Froehlich has been pretty generous in the past. No previous Jackpot runner had less than a 2-mile head start.

"I haven't had that much time to think about his pace and how much of an advantage he'll get," the veteran race director said. "Surely, he won't be starting way down Kirkwood Boulevard."

Lloyd has made a nice sideline of running local road races since he ended his college career after his junior season. He estimates he has won 40 races over the years.

But he never envisioned breaking the tape at the Bix.

"Yeah, that would be fun," he said.

Win or not, Britta will be waiting.