Brad Horn/Nevada Appeal Camille Vecchiarelli, of Dayton, relaxes after her bed broke before the start of the outhouse races on Pike Street during the Santa Maria Day festival on Saturday. Her pushers from left, Oscar Turnipseed and Russ Harig, of Dayton, get ready for another try.
Camille Vecchiarelli, of Dayton, knows the feeling of an antique bed on wheels crashing underneath her.
The bed's front end was the first to spill apart, pieces of the bed frame laid like a broken wing under her. The bed's red satin sheets gleamed under the hot sun Saturday afternoon during the Ultimate Outhouse & Bed races at Dayton's Santa Maria Day. Artificial flowers entwined about the bed's headboard.
Vecchiarelli, a Do-Mor for Dayton organization volunteer, threw her arms over the bed posts and laughed at herself, the bed and the fact that the Dayton Kiwanis Club's outhouse was already at the finish line, only a few hundred yards away.
"That was embarrassing, man," said Oscar Turnipseed, one of the pushers.
This was a less-than-auspicious debut for the first bed entered in the races, and one of only three entries in all.
Vecchiarelli declared, as friends clustered around to make sure she was okay, that she wouldn't try riding again. But as soon as the bed was back together, she hopped back on. This time the Old Fogy's Club team had a strategy.
Before announcer Al Roth yelled "One ... two ... three, go!" Turnipseed coached his pushing partner. He didn't want to lose another one. His strategy was to start out slow, instead of jerking the bed into motion and maybe the pieces would hold together.
His plan worked, but it wasn't enough to edge out the experienced Kiwanis Club team.
"At least we made it more than two feet," Vecchiarelli said at the finish line, the first telephone pole on Pike Street. "Oh, God I really need a drink now."
The Kiwanis Club sported a traditional-model outhouse, complete with a crescent-moon carved into the door.
When 10-year-old Erick Wolf sat inside the outhouse he saw the baby blue sky and wisps of clouds through the quarter-moon. He came along for the ride in the first race. Light shined into the stuffy outhouse through holes drilled into the manufactured wood walls. A small plaque on the toilet lid marked this toilet as the 2001 Dayton Valley Day's race winner.
The champion of the day was the Old Corner Ice Cream Parlor team and their aerodynamic red, double-seater outhouse, which won over Kiwanis in the first race. Old Fogy's got the booby award for falling apart.
"A lot of people say this sport stinks, but I like it," said Old Corner pusher Darrell Brantingham.
His son, 13-year-old Joel Brantingham, steered the team to victory. Even pusher Stony Tennant's loss of his artificial-straw hat during the race didn't slow them down.
Janet and Ken Moser, new Dayton residents, came to watch the outhouse and bed races. They relaxed under the Old Corner Ice Cream Parlor's shaded porch. They came here to escape the "left coast," as Janet Moser called it, or California.
"This is the first time we've come here," Ken Moser said. "This is great for a small-town event."
Mary Wilson, 7, and her younger brother Jacob, came here for the games. Both Washoe Valley kids sucked on rainbow-colored snow cones. Mary won a pair of plastic sunglasses, two key chains and a coloring book at the frog toss game. Jacob said his favorite part was the "tractors and the guy in his underwear," describing floats in the parade.
Historically, Santa Maria Day celebrated today, is a Roman Catholic holiday that celebrates the ascension of the Virgin Mary into heaven. The modern Dayton Santa Maria Day began in 1973 as a fund-raiser for the Dayton Volunteer Fire Department.
Contact Becky Bosshart at bbosshart@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.
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