Denton’s weird and wonderful Day of the Dead festival is described as Día De Los Muertos, Halloween and a fall harvest celebration all rolled up into one multicultural festival. Visitors can enjoy a Halloween-themed tent show, pumpkin patch, a twilight costume contest and parade, and of course, the wildly popular coffin races.
Wait, what? Coffin racing?
This was something that KERA Morning Edition host Andrew Garcia and I just had to know more about.
As it turns out, Denton’s Day of the Day coffin races are exactly that–coffins racing. Well, push-cars designed to look like coffins–that race down Hickory Street in Denton.
Kelley Pound, who is the chair of the Denton Day of the Dead Coffin Race Committee, told us how the whole thing works.
She said this year, 70 teams will race in time trials. The fastest 32 teams are seeded in a bracket.
“From there, it is just head-to-head racing,” Pound said. “The first one across the line advances to the next round.”
Pound said the racers put a lot of pride into the look, feel and style of their cars, but at the end of the day, being fast is what counts.
“They all wanna win,” Pound said, laughing.
La Bala
Denton resident and business owner Victor Ambrosio entered his first race in 2015. He didn’t win, but he came back even stronger in 2016 when he won with a coffin he named "La Bala"–that’s Spanish for the bullet.
“We tried to build it in the shape of a coffin, but we ended up with more of a bullet-like shape, so we just named it “The Bullet.”
Andrew and I pictured lots of plywood and spray paint when it came to putting the outside of these cars together. But what engineering (if any) is involved in a push-car?
Ambrosio said the concept is pretty simple for his car.
"It's just two 1970 bike frames in the rear and one kit bike frame up front that are all welded metal and steel,” Ambrosio said.
“Anything on wheels”
For the safety of everyone, the cars must have functioning brakes and steering and they are inspected prior to the start of the race. Pound said in the early years of the coffin races it was sort of a free-for-all.
“There was a local chiropractor who went down Hickory, face down on a gurney,” recalled Pound. “We had a guy riding a keg of beer and another in a little red wagon covered with cardboard.”
And then there was the year a Doctor Who-inspired car entered the race.
"There was a gigantic TARDIS--that's the big, blue phone booth from Doctor Who--and it was so heavy, it crashed into the bike fencing."
Pound said these early creations meant adjustments to the rules and regulations.
"We got to the point where we said, you know, this is a coffin race. We're going to ask the teams that it needs to be coffin-inspired," Pound said. "We've asked [contestants] to leave the gurneys at home, and build a car that's more in line with the spirit of the event."
The rules had to be updated again when a team decided to take their “push-car” to the next level.
"We've been very clear, no pedals, no engines. Well, we weren't very specific about compressed air,” Pound said.
“I don't want to say any team names,” Ambrosio said, recalling the incident, “But we were almost to the end of the race line and someone popped some CO2 tanks, and it made his car go extra fast to beat me.”
The following year a new rule was added: No propulsion of any sort.
Bragging rights and a skull trophy
So what’s on the line to inspire such high levels of competitiveness?
The winner gets the coveted skull head-shaped "fastest coffin” trophy, and more importantly, 12 months of bragging rights, which is pretty substantial when you factor in the high stakes of local pride.
“When you have teams from Dallas and Carrollton joining in to try to take our trophy, we don't want them to take it somewhere else,” Ambrosio said. “We want the trophy to be here, and so if you get a win around here, it's something to be proud of.“
Hoping to keep the trophy in Denton, Ambrosio is back this year with what he thinks is an ace in the hole.
“My secret weapon is the guy pushing the coffin,” Ambrosio said. “I sent him to the gym all year. Most people don't know that – It’s the guy that’s pushing, and not the guy who's driving,
DETAILS: Denton’s Day of the Dead Festival is Oct. 24-26. The coffin races are Saturday, Oct. 25 at noon at 110 W. Hickory St., downtown Denton. Free.
