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The Chiditarod: Chicago’s Urban Shopping Cart Race

More than 500 people raced shopping carts down the sidewalks, streets and alleys of Chicago's Wicker Park neighborhood Saturday, March 1, 2008, as part of a food drive that combined athleticism, alcohol, trickery and lavish costumes.

Eighty-three teams completed the approximately five mile course, raising over 2,000 lbs. of food (see comment for more info ) --more than doubling last year's participation and intake.

The Chiditarod, an event with roots in Chicago's Burning Man Festival community, is part of a loose, national network of urban shopping cart races that have sprung up in the last ten years. Ten reporters embedded with teams in the 2008 Chiditarod. The videos above tell their stories.

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More than 500 people raced shopping carts down the sidewalks, streets and alleys of Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood Saturday, March 1, 2008, as part of a food drive that combined athleticism, alcohol, trickery and lavish costumes. More than 80 teams came seeking shopping cart glory. Some succeeded. Some failed. We filmed 10 of their stories.

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Comments

Watchman says:
1 year 17 weeks ago

The Warriors are the team to watch tomorrow. No stoppin em...no sabotage...no tricks....they are out to win.

Andy says:
1 year 17 weeks ago

Actually, our name was Henrietta Pussycat says "Meow Meow Meow Meow Die". Still, we had so much fun, we'll forgive this one.

This event went off fantastically, and I can't imagine how we'll ever top the amount of AWESOME that was displayed this year. Props to every participant; it was UNBELIEVABLY EPIC.

Chiditarod '08 = pee-your-pants excitement... well done all!

This was a terrific year for the Chiditarod. The work done by Method Reporter was fantastic. A special thanks goes out to Angela for all her hard work. We'll be your wingmen any day.

This event collected way more than 2,000 lbs of food!

Last year, the intake was 2,300 lbs. That entire haul fit into the back of a hatchback. This year, that same hatchback was filled, an SUV was filled, a Chevy pickup was over flowing, and all that food was what remained AFTER a south side church (connected through Burners Without Borders) brought a cargo van, completely filled it, and began turning food away.

We actually have no idea how much food was brought in because we were completely overwhelmed (logistically and emotionally) by the volume of the donations!

The food from the hatchback, SUV, and pickup went to the food pantry at Onward Neighborhood House in the Ukrainian Village. Our entire pantry will be stocked 2x over!! Thank you to everyone. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Thanks for the info, Jen. I've added a link to your comment into the text above.

Andy says:
1 year 17 weeks ago

Thanks for correcting our team name. That was quick. Is it true they had to turn away food? That's horrible. We raised a lot of food, and it'd be sad to see it go to waste.

Thanks again for everything, though. I love the event, and I loved our video. Paul did a great job.

Mr. Rogers, why were you cutting yourself? Inquiring minds want to know!

This question inspired no end of debate in the editing room this weekend.

Do you need an intervention of some sort?

Andy says:
1 year 17 weeks ago

I cut myself because we had stiff cardboard to make an ear for Henrietta Pussycat and only an exacto-knife in order to cut it. Don't you worry your little hearts, Methods Reporter, Mr. Rogers ended up being OK.

Thanks so much for covering our team! We had so much fun participating in the Chiditarod and working with Satta & Hilary!

xo,
Loco Chanel/ Windy City Rollers

andrea says:
16 weeks 5 days ago

will you guys be posting anything from this year's chiditarod? hope so...

Hey Andrea,

There's tons of great Chiditarod 2009 stuff on the Windy Citizen.

We've got a roundup of links to coverage from Time Out Chicago, Chicagoist, Flickr and more over here:

http://www.windycitizen.com/chicago/local/2009/03/09chiditarod-2009-a-da...

And then our own Paul Dailing decided to join the race this year and produce a series of off-the-cuff video diaries about the experience. The fourth one gives a great sense of what the starting line scene looked like this year. you can find them all here.

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