Registration has been a discombobulated mess, no one knows the route, and it is expected to be 26 degrees with a 50 percent chance of snow on Saturday, but that has done little to diminish Brooklynites’ unbridled enthusiasm for the 2010 Idiotarod.
The marathon scavenger race, which features teams of creatively costumed hipsters pushing shopping carts, is rumored to make its way through Brooklyn at some point on January 30. The route will be released 24 hours prior to the event among those teams who complete the draconian registration process.
This year’s competition has been muddled in controversy, as the previous organizers, Team Dangerzone, sold the rights to Idiotarod to a mysterious entity that refers themselves to Corporation X. A video that Corporation X posted on the Internet did little to resolve the confusion.
The registration form is not as simple as the 2010 Census. Instead, it is an extensive five-page document cataloguing prior Idiotarod involvement and including questions such as, “How much money have you and your team allocated for bribery?”, “Please draw a cat fighting a robot” and “If given the choice between a sweet potato and a real potato, which would you eat?”, in addition to a self-timed physical evaluation and a psychological evaluation with a Rorschach test.
“We’re going to fill out the form, hope for the best, and hope that the organizers send out the starting location,” said competitor Rachel Brill. “Last year was our first year, but this year we are so much better prepared and we have a shot at winning an award.”
Brill’s team, Disasterpiece, will feature battles between costumed chess figures pushing a walking chess board cart. Brill will be a knight, joining her teammates dressed as rooks, bishops, king and queen.
“We’re going to speak in silly British accents and move in chess characters,” said Brill. “The knight can only move in L shapes. Our costumes are amazing. We’re going to get into fights with each other discussing about moves.”
The goal of the race is to visit each checkpoint without having your cart sabotaged by a rival pushcart team. Last year Brill and former teammate Lacey Tauber found their shopping cart bolted to a cinderblock that was tied to another cart in Long Island City. The delay from the subsequent negotiation with officers from the 108th Precinct resulted in a 60th place finish.
“The Sabotage Circus got us last year,” said Tauber.“A cop smashed our cinderblock and we were on our way. We made it to the end, which is the important part.”
This year, with a new team called “The Strip,” Tauber is hoping to do better.
“They’re not doing an award for sabotage this year, but that itself could be a sabotage. The whole point of Idiotarod is that you don’t know who you can trust,” said Tauber.
For more information about the 2010 Idiotarod and updates on the route and the race, visit www.CartsofBrooklyn.com.
