The Pumpkin Races, one of Manhattan Beach’s signature events, began at a birthday party in Hermosa Beach in 1990.
Karl Rogers, whose birthday is Oct. 29, invited friends over to his house on Longfellow Avenue for his 28th birthday.
Tired of the usual costume party, he cast around for something new. He noticed his skateboard, which he often rode down the hill, sitting next to some pumpkins on the porch.
“I tried putting the pumpkin on the skateboard and rolling it down Longfellow Avenue,” he said. “It went really fast, but it was boring.”
Then he thought about giving the pumpkin its own wheels. He bought some supplies. When his guests arrived, they decorated the pumpkins.
On a whim, he sent out a press release advertising the event. To his surprise, a news van came.
“By the end of the night, four or five people had said, ‘Of course, you’re doing it for your birthday again next year, right?’”
The following year, about 30 or 40 people came. Rogers’s friend Michael Aaker, who attended the first pumpkin race, came dressed as a referee.
That year saw the introduction of the “anti-stealth rule” and the beginning of the cheater pumpkin tradition.
“The first race, it was all pumpkins I had built and other people decorated,” Rogers said. “The second year, one of the pumpkins looked like a stealth airplane. It had wings, was painted black and went straight and fast.”
The pumpkin was mounted on a Tonka truck.
“We said: ‘Okay, first rule: You can’t do that,’” said Rogers.
But the punishment of the mallet didn’t deter everyone.
“People came up with interesting ways not to win, but to be smashed,” said Rogers. He recalled pulverizing a pumpkin one year only to find candy spill out like a piñata.
Young participants began relishing the chance to shout the refrain, “Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater.”
Organizers created the Pumpkin Racer Pledge, which participants recite before racing.
“If everyone decides to play fair, it’s more fun than if someone cheats and wins,” Rogers said.
The event kept growing every year until hundreds of people were coming. In 1997, it moved to the house of John Holliday, another one of the original attendees, who lives on 8th Street at North Herrin Street in Manhattan Beach.
About 17 years after their first race, Rogers, Holliday and Aaker were no longer able to handle the crowd, so they approached the city about taking the event over. They found an ally in Idris Al-Oboudi in the parks and recreation department.
“Idris instantly understood how it could be a great event,” Rogers said. “I was thinking they were going to give us a corner of a park, which would’ve been fine. He said, ‘In your wildest dreams, where would it be?’ I thought of the pier with the pumpkins rolling toward it. And he said, ‘Well, dreams come true.’”
The city council approved the event, and the first races at the pier were held in 2007. Over 8,000 people attended, according to Al-Oboudi, who added his own flair.
“I brought in an element of street theater,” he said. “It was Harlem Globetrotters meets Pumpkin Races on steroids.”
City employees joined in the fun, although the fire department had already begun dressing up and racing their pumpkin with a fire helmet years earlier while supervising the event.
The city won a national parks and recreation award for the event.
But the second year, the economy took a nosedive and the city didn’t want to front the money.
Al-Oboudi found a partner in Skechers, which started The Friendship Walk.
Now the tradition of the Pumpkin Races has spread to cities around the country. When Rogers moved to Westport, Connecticut for five years, he introduced the idea to that community. There are now about 200 pumpkin races nationally, he said.
“It just grew beyond my wildest dreams,” he said.
He hopes to expand it even further and is talking to potential sponsors.
“I’m not stopping until it becomes a national Halloween tradition,” he said.
Although he’s attended the event every year except the five years he lived on the East Coast, Rogers hasn’t competed recently.
“If I win my own thing, it just wouldn’t seem right,” he said.
Nonetheless, for the 25th anniversary on Oct. 25, he plans to compete.
“I’m going to try to just be a kid again, instead of an organizer. When put in this environment, everyone turns into a 10-year-old kid,” he said. “They can’t help it.”
Al-Oboudi promised some surprises to mark the anniversary.
“We’re going to double the fun,” he said.
Looking back, Rogers is still amazed at how his spontaneous idea has grown.
“What really amazes me is that what started out as a birthday party could capture the imagination of the town,” Rogers said. “Manhattan Beach is afraid of losing its hometown charm. I think in some small way, it brings back the charm. I like to think the pumpkin races contribute to the sense of community.” ER
