This Sunday marked the 25th anniversary of the Pumpkin Races.
On an October day in 1990, Karl Rogers first pushed a pumpkin down Longfellow Avenue on a skateboard.
The annual tradition attracted so many people that the city took it over in 2007.
Rogers and friends John Holliday and Michael Aaker, who were present at the first Pumpkin Races, attended on Oct. 25. (Rogers even raced a pumpkin, although it didn’t win.)
The Manhattan Beach Police Department won the departmental race, as it did last year.
Referee Mike Sullivan of LA Car Guy announced that he would donate $1,000 to the winners’ schools.
In fourth place was Jeff Gill of Culver City with Kristen Carter and their pumpkin Donald Trumpkin. A former resident of El Segundo, Gill said he’s returned for the past five years to compete.
In third place was Rowan Park, a Manhattan Beach Middle School seventh grader, and Harold Kim, with Chizo 1.
Second place was Tommy Griffith, a fifth grader at Robinson Elementary who won last year’s race, with Zombie Shark.
And in first place were Kevin Clark and Dylan Arroyo of Beach Babies with their pumpkin Brainiac. ER
