Why Phoenix Idiotarod is the Valley’s bawdiest, booziest event

Chuck Vaughn is ready to hunt. As he steps out of his Tempe apartment building one recent Sunday, his steely eyes scan the messy alleyway behind his building. His years as an outdoorsman, adventurer and trail-runner have sharpened his senses. As a seasoned darts player, he has mastered the art of honing in on a target. He sets out on a hunch that his prey lurks among the urban shadows of late afternoon.

Vaughn and danger are old friends. He has scaled canyon walls and leaped from a rooftop into a pool wearing a luchador mask and flaming swimsuit. Today his quarry happens to be ... a shopping cart.

His best bet, he decides, is to prowl the alley like a human raccoon. His instincts prove correct within a few hundred feet. Alongside a trash barrel caked with filth, he spots an unmarked grey and black cart resting upright on all four wheels. Despite its grimy appearance, scratched-up plastic bumpers and clamorous rattle when it rolls, it’s exactly suited to  Vaughn’s needs.

Bullseye.

“There it fucking is,” he says. “That’ll be my cart. You can’t ask for much better than this.”

Now the ramshackle cart designed to ferry groceries has a new purpose: helping Vaughn and some friends make a rainbow connection. A few days from now, they’ll transform it into the quaint scene from 1979’s “The Muppet Movie” in which Kermit the Frog strums out folksy tunes in a swamp.

Meanwhile, they’re prepping costumes to transform themselves into other characters from the Henson-verse, including Animal, Beaker, Dr. Teeth and the Swedish Chef.
Vaughn and friends are set to participate in this Saturday’s Phoenix Idiotarod, the gleefully chaotic annual shopping cart race, urban prank and bar crawl. Organized by counterculture collective the Arizona Cacophony Society, the largely unknown downtown Phoenix event is high-concept, lowbrow fun. In recent years, it’s also benefited local nonprofits, including UMOM, through donations of clothing and household items.

The Phoenix Idiotarod has been a delightfully absurd, gloriously messy staple of downtown’s countercultural scene for nearly 20 years. But for the first time in its history, the race feels like it’s facing a make-or-break moment. Its new organizer — and self-proclaimed “king of the idiots”— was handed the pudding-stained reins after longtime organizers stepped down and has grand plans for its future.

But can the Idiotarod reach its lofty goals while remaining true to its earthy roots? The moment is suddenly precarious. Maybe that’s fitting for an event that breeds chaos. A hallmark of any Phoenix
Idiotarod, after all, is that no one ever knows what’s around the corner.

“‘Mayhem’ is the perfect word to describe it,” Vaughn says. “It’s an epic day with amazing costumes where you get to make an ass of yourself. It’s my favorite day in Phoenix.”

‘It’s different from anything else’

Phoenix’s Idiotarod has taken place almost every February since 2007. The event draws inspiration from Alaska’s legendary Iditarod sled dog race in name and setup. There, the comparisons end.

In the Idiotarod, teams of five or more costumed “idiots” race decorated shopping carts along the streets and sidewalks of downtown and Roosevelt Row. Each group has a particular theme, usually inspired by pop culture franchises or notable events. Along the way, teams make pit stops at bars and local parks for gonzo and colorfully profane challenges typically involving alcohol (think: drunken Twister, spinning a wheel of booze or wrestling opponents into sex positions).

Friendly sabotage, vandalism and playful bribery between teams are fully encouraged. There are few rules and no set course. And nobody’s attempting to cross the finish line first.

The Phoenix Idiotarod is the zaniest event in Arizona — certainly one of its most deranged — and offers the right amount of wrong. It’s like if “Supermarket Sweep,” “Double Dare” and “Jackass” had a drunken Technicolor orgy in the middle of First Friday. Phoenix resident Jessi Sheridan, competing in her fourth Idiotarod in 2025, loves the race. The Mohawked plumbing supply warehouse employee has previously been on teams inspired by garden gnomes, hair metal bands and the Morton’s Salt girl. This year, her crew is all about “Alice,” the ‘80s sitcom set (and partially filmed) in Phoenix. They’ll build a miniature Mel’s Diner sign for their cart and fling grilled cheese sandwiches at opponents.

“It’s different from anything else,” she says. “It was something outside of my wheelhouse and I absolutely fell in love. Everyone involved is super-creative, it’s inclusive and it’s just a fucking good time.”

Despite the passion of regulars like Sheridan and Vaughn, this year’s Phoenix Idiotarod almost didn’t happen. Chromatest J. Pantsmaker, the race’s co-founder and longtime organizer, decided last year that he was stepping down, without a replacement.
But Phoenix Idiotarod got a last-minute reprieve when Tara Bingdazzo, a race volunteer and previous participant, agreed to take over. She intends to run an upstanding event. For one, she hopes to encourage new participants. Bingdazzo says two teams who debuted last year consisted of 21-year-olds who’d waited for years to compete in an Idiotarod, a trend she wants to encourage.

“They were so excited to finally get to race with us,” Bingdazzo says. “There’s like an old-school, traditional group of people that have done this for the last many years and we need to conjure up fresh blood, like new younger people to participate.”

This year, she says, the race should look like its familiar self. In the future, she wants to amplify the event’s charitable aspects. That could mean adding fundraising and sponsors, with all the unknowns those groups tend to bring to a ribald, booze-soaked blowout. Phoenix Idiotarod participants are just hoping she keeps the race alive.

‘The sheer idiocy of it is a competition’

Why do people participate in the Phoenix Idiotarod? Depends on who you’re asking. The short, and most common, answers: It’s gloriously unhinged and makes our city a more interesting place.

It’s also why Pantsmaker and Chris Lykins, a local otolaryngologist, imported the race to the Valley in 2007. Both were commiserating over a lack of lively countercultural activities around town and decided to make their own fun.

“Phoenix was dead,” Lykins told New Times in 2020. “Everyone bitched about nothing happening here. I’m like, ‘Let’s just bring stuff here.’”

A Stanford student named Tommy Kramer first launched the Idiotarod concept in San Francisco in 1994, and people in more than a dozen cities around the continent have run their own versions. When Pantsmaker and Lykins adapted the race to downtown Phoenix, they kept the original concept and its vital outlandishness.
Bingdazzo says half the fun of Idiotarod is seeing what participants and organizers dream up each year, from the themes to the challenges.

“It’s not just five people with a shopping cart racing around and getting drunk. It’s really become a way to showcase their creativity,” Bingdazzo says. “The sheer idiocy of it is a competition in and of itself. People are competing to see who can come up with the most idiotic thing.”

It’s worth noting there’s heavy crossover between Phoenix Idiotarod participants and the local Burning Man regulars, two communities that celebrate relentless creativity and warped senses of humor. As a result, Idiotarod carts here skew wacky — and sometimes really fucking weird — as do the challenges at race checkpoints (more on that in a second).

At one of the first races, a team made their cart look like a mobile abortion clinic. Other years have seen teams build giant toilets or dress in penis costumes. When the Costa Concordia cruise liner wrecked in 2012, killing 32 passengers, one Idiotarod team satirized the disaster the following year with their cart.Things have toned down in recent years. Teams tend to tap into nostalgia instead of their inner 12-year-old. Memorable throwback teams over the years have included mock-ups of X-Wings, the original USS Enterprise or the intergalactic Winnebago from “Spaceballs.”

Duane Freeman has done more of the latter. The 46-year-old therapist and former improv comedian has participated in Idiotarods since 2008, first in Chicago and then Phoenix. He bubbles as he explains how his teams have transformed carts into Daniel LaRusso’s shower costume in “The Karate Kid” and the ThunderTank from “Thundercats.”

This year, they’re doing “The Oregon Trail,” the beloved educational computer game of grade-school computer labs everywhere. Freeman says the group are still deciding who has the honor of dying from
dysentery.

“We turn into kids again when talking about building the cart and all the fun things we want to do,” Freeman says. “It’s funny to hear us on the phone, like ‘What the fuck is wrong with us? Why are we this giddy about something that we’re probably too old to be doing?’”

‘Nobody takes themselves all that seriously’

While Freeman’s teams have generally kept their carts PG, he admits getting a chuckle out of Phoenix Idiotarod’s often-twisted challenges at checkpoints. Some are harmless fun — picture Freddie Mercury-impersonation contests or riding tricycles through obstacle courses. Others are more risque, like “cockfighting” battles involving knocking an inflatable penis off an opponent without using their hands. Then, of course, there was the challenge inspired by “The Human Centipede.”

“We were all in large underwear that was connected together and we had crawl across the ground to eat pudding,” he says. “That was clearly pre-COVID.”

Freeman says an open mind and anything-goes attitude are prerequisite to handling the race. If your team gets attacked with spray paint or silly string, you simply have to push through the friendly sabotage.

“Nobody takes themselves all that seriously,” he says. “If something happens to their cart, they don’t get all weird about it. They know that sabotage and being fucked with is part of the experience. And everybody’s just so chill and fun.”
It also helps to have a tolerance for alcohol. The boozy nature of Phoenix Idiotarod has been baked into its DNA since conception: Lykins and Pantsmaker first conversed about the race over drinks at downtown’s Bikini Lounge. They sketched the original course design on a cocktail napkin.

High spirits spill over to every aspect of the race. Checkpoints, in particular, tilt wet. Teams freely hand out drinks to fellow competitors. Last year the pirate-themed team “Surrender the Booty” used adult novelties to dispense shots.

“There’s nothing like watching people take shots out of dildos,” Sheridan says. “You had to jack off the dildos until you got alcohol. We just passed stuff out (to other teams). I don’t make anybody work for it.”

Freeman says it’s gotten harder to handle his alcohol as he’s gotten older.
“I have two glasses of wine and become giggly,” he says. “So when someone tells you, ‘Chug this warm bottle of lavender beer’ and then you’re doing shots after, it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t do this stuff.’ I’m always impressed at the people who can.”

Vaughn says no one should mistake the Idiotarod for an ordinary race with winners and losers. (As Kramer told SFGate in 2023, “You’re not supposed to get here fast. You’re supposed to get here drunk.”)

“No one cares about being first,” Vaughn says. “There’s a reason they only give out trophies at the after-party for awards like ‘Best Theme’ and ‘Best in Show’ and not ‘First Place.’”

As it turns out, the real rewards of Phoenix Idiotarod are the half-formed memories we collect along the way.

‘King of the Idiots’

For all intents and purposes, the Phoenix Idiotarod was set to die after last year’s edition. Pantsmaker had announced he stepping down as organizer without a successor.

The event’s impending demise inspired a team to race under a funerary theme, complete with a costumed priest and Grim Reaper. Their cart resembled an open grave carrying an “RIP Idiotarod” tombstone.

Enter Bingdazzo, who saved the Idiotarod from an eternal slumber. During last year’s after-party and awards ceremony, she volunteered to become its new organizer and become what she calls “king of the idiots.”

Bingdazzo says she didn’t want the race to crash and burn, a la the oversized shopping cart in the opening credits of “Jackass: The Movie.”

For the event to survive, she says, the Phoenix Idiotarod needs to adapt. Saturday’s race will be a traditional Idiotarod race with all its notorious hallmarks. In 2026, though, Bingdazzo plans to reach out to more charities and explore the possibility of sponsorships for teams from local companies. She would also like to have more bars involved, albeit of the mom-and-pop variety.“We deliberately select local bars, not chain restaurants or anything like that,” she says. “The bars we’re using now, even though I say, ‘Look, your bar is going to be run amok for an hour or two by a huge crowd,’ they love it.”

Freeman thinks introducing sponsors might be difficult given the race’s bizarre confines.

“Most companies are not going to say, ‘Yup, that’s our team there with the large underwear on,’” he says. “The sponsorship component might be a little tricky.”

It’s not a foreign concept in the Idiotarod world, nor is it a buzzkill to the freewheeling, anything-goes vibes of the race.

Chicago’s annual CHIditarod became a nonprofit foundation in 2013. It raises more than $100,000 annually while collecting thousands of pounds of donated food items. (CHIditarod also fields more than 50 teams and features imaginative carts inspired by “Cocaine Bear” or resembling a giant rodent — a.k.a. the ChiditaRat — or an enormous jet airplane.)

Before Phoenix Idiotarod can take its first steps in a similar direction, Bingdazzo says they could use more participants for Saturday’s race. If you’re an aspiring idiot who knows where to find a shopping cart on short notice, that means you.

“I need people to sign up so people know it’s still strong and still alive,” she says. “We don’t turn anyone away.” She’s not sweating it. Something about this race brings out the best in procrastinators. Teams can even sign up until the race begins at noon on Saturday. They’ve had people roll up to the starting line in years past and race.

The 2025 Phoenix Idiotarod takes place at noon on Saturday, Feb. 8, in downtown Phoenix. Teams can register up until the start of the race. Entry fee is $50.