Four brave teams entered the inaugural Great Tucson Iditarod race today, April Fool’s Day in Tucson, under bright sunny skies, a bit of wind, at about 78 degrees F. I was there to witness some of these teams check in at the starting line at Bentley’s House of Coffee & Tea at Nob Hill (1730 E. Speedway, west of Campbell).

The 4 teams that competed for $100 prizes (in order at check in):

1) “3 Blind Mice” (Rena Ikeda, Wendy Martin, Ben Young, Ruben Moreno, and child Sabin Enos -riding in the cart). Ruben is a local artist whom I’ve blogged about before (click here). “Farmer’s wife” Rena (photo below) had a large carving knife to cut off the 3 blind mice’s tails as in the nursery rhyme.

2) “The Dive Bar” (Tesa Mayorga, Mari Galup, Mamta Popat, Jessica Kranz, Elva Dela Torre, all taking turns riding in the shopping cart). They even had snorkeling (dive?) equipment attached, along w/ a bar for drinks/cocktails.

3) “Divinity by Design” (Christina Russell, Angelica Russell-Johnson, Enid Moore-Cranshaw, Kimiko Crawley (in the cart), Tileka Russell). This family team name was derived from their websites –Tileka website’s: www.Design-Amazing.com, and Enid’s: www.divinitysalonaz.com.

4) “Nessie & the Cryptids” (Sarah Trainor as “Jackalope”, Ben Harper as “Trunko”, and Chris Perez as “Amazing Bat Boy”). Probably the most unusual entry of legendary land & sea creatures.

Photos below courtesy of Audrey Dela Rosa and more on their Iditarod Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Great-Tucson-Iditarod-Race-April-1-2012/348140168539406

"Farmer's wife" Rena Ikeda with knife to chop off mice tails

Team "Three Blind Mice" getting ready to start the race

Serving cocktails by "The Dive Bar" team

"The Dive Bar" team leaving Bentley's starting line on Speedway

Athletic "Divinity by Design" team at Bentley's

"Divinity" team members enthusiastically start off jogging

Shopping cart "Nessie" being unloaded

"Nessie & the Cryptids" Team of 3

I bicycled along the route from Bentley’s Coffee shop down to the UA Mall on University Blvd. and over to Time Market, where I witnessed team # 3 “Divinity by Design” overtake team #2 “The Dive Bar”.

According to organizer David Aguirre here’s the order of the teams as they came in at the Food Truck Roundup finish line: 1) “Divinity by Design” 2) “3 Blind Mice” 3) “The Dive Bar” and 4) “Nessie & the Cryptids”. Monetary awards were presented at 5:30 p.m. today to all 4 teams at the Food Truck event near Benjamin Plumbing.

Congratulations to Dinnerware Artspace director David Aguirre for creating this 1st time event in Tucson. And congratulations to the 4 teams of enthusiastic, hardy entrants for finishing the race & for their creativity in designing their shopping carts.