'It's just phenomenal': Inside the primal appeal of T-Rex races

THE RUNNERS HAD REACHED the starting gate. It was post time at Emerald Downs, a racetrack in Auburn, Washington, as sun-drenched fans dressed like it was the Kentucky Derby. But the race they were about to witness was less mint julep and more "Jurassic Park." "And they're off!" Hundreds of people in inflatable Tyrannosaurus Rex costumes chaotically sprinted down a one-sixteenth of a mile portion of the dirt track, their giant pillowy heads bouncing around toward a finish line they couldn't really see. "Everything about it is a challenge. Because if you think about it, running as a T-Rex is a challenge. Your head's gigantic, your tail's gigantic, your arms can't really move. So that's inherently difficult," said Danny New, a reporter at ABC News whose affinity for wearing these inflatable costumes on set made him a natural fit to become host and hype man for the annual T-Rex World Championships at Emerald Downs. "In this scenario, you're running in an inflatable. That's like running in a parachute. So the head is bobbing around. The tail is also just kind of there, flailing around," he said. "At least to my understanding, I do not believe the inflatable T-Rex costume was invented to run track." Rubies Costume Company is widely cited as the reason these inflatable thunder lizards have become so ubiquitous, thanks to a movie tie-in with 2015's "Jurassic World." One sees them on Halloween, at children's parties and, ever since 2017, running the track at Emerald Downs, whose president Phil Ziegler said the largest number of competitors in the race was around 200 prehistoric runners. "It's become a bucket list thing for some people to do," Ziegler said. "I can't explain what the appeal is of why this event has just captured people to want to fly to Seattle. I can't explain it, other than it's just phenomenal." Watch the T-Rex World Championships at 8 p.m. ET on Thursday as part of the 10th anniversary edition of ESPN's The Ocho. THE EVOLUTIONARY CHAIN for T-Rex races stretches back to an unlikely ancestor: wiener dogs. Emerald Downs had been racing these tubular canines for years. But Ziegler soon found out the real money was in corgis. He attended a professional conference some years ago where he met officials from a racetrack in Minnesota, who informed him their corgi races were drawing 14,000 fans. "I'm like, 'Oh my god, I guess we're doing corgi races next year,'" Ziegler said. They were a huge hit for the track, but Ziegler couldn't have predicted that they'd also become a sensation on television. ESPN used footage of the corgi races as programming filler while other sports were still emerging from the COVID pandemic. Soon, footage of the races was showing up on James Corden's late night show and "Live with Kelly and Mark" in the morning. The Seattle Seahawks reached out for help in creating halftime corgi races. The venerable Saratoga Racetrack in New York state also asked for help, hoping to stage corgi races on Sundays to attract more families. One thing was clear for Ziegler: The wackier the race, the more eyeballs it earned. T-Rex races would eventually be the next evolution -- although the inspiration for them came from an unlikely source. It was a typical race day at Emerald Downs in 2016 when Ziegler spotted something untypical in the crowd. "There were about 20 people dressed in togas," he recalled, "and so I went up to them and asked why they were doing this." Ziegler was informed this was a corporate team-building event, but his togaed patrons wouldn't say where they worked, not wanting the attention. But they did have a request for Ziegler: After the races were done, could they run the track in their togas? Ziegler granted the request. "If you know anything about Emerald Downs, we'll pretty much race anything. Corgis. Grandparents. Whatever," he said. One year later, the corporate team builders returned, having dropped their togas for another era entirely, wearing T-Rex costumes and hitting the track again. Finally, one of the T-Rex racers let Ziegler know they were employees from TriGuard Pest Control. "I'll never forget this line because it was so amazing. He says, 'We do it as team-building for our customer service reps, because a lot of young people come in from around the country to work there. The lesson they were teaching: To feel comfortable in an uncomfortable situation.'" The T-Rexes returned in 2018 for another race. This time, someone from the suites at the track filmed them. The video went viral after it aired on ESPN, earning over a million views. By 2019, the T-Rex races went global, earning coverage from CNN to news outlets in Australia to the pages of a "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" book. "Although the identities of the racers have yet to be revealed, track announcer Tom Harris did give shoutouts to runners including Dino Dasher, Rex Girlfriend and Ramblin' Rex. But it was Regular Unleaded who dashed to first place," the Ripley's entry read. Around the COVID-19 pandemic, Ziegler and the TriGuard team agreed to open the race to the public, resulting in upward of 200 T-Rexes rumbling down the track. But the event's expansion was bittersweet. Terry Richards, an owner of TriGuard and a catalyst for their team-building exercises, died along with his son Caleb Tennant in a small plane crash near the Oregon-Idaho border on April 2, 2023. He was 43. "It was horrible," Ziegler said. After that tragedy, Ziegler reached out to TriGuard about the future of the event and its participation. Ziegler said it wanted to continue in Richards' honor and be a presenting sponsor. "Every year since then, they still send out 30 to 50 people to participate in this," he said. "In fact, a lot of the faster runners over the past couple of years has been the TriGuard workers. We still always recognize them." In 2025, what started as a corporate team-building event ended up as ESPN programming, joining The Ocho block of quirky sports and sports entertainment as his corgi race had previously. This presented a challenge to Ziegler. "What are we going to do with the 20-something minutes we have to fill to make it into a 30-minute show?" he said. "So we decided to make it a truly competitive thing and have categories." THE T-REX WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS now feature men's and women's divisions; boys and girls 12-and-under divisions; teens; and what Ziegler said is their "dino dino divisions," featuring men and women racers 55 and older. The adults run 100 yards. Kids and seniors run 70 yards. "It's all very serious tongue-in-cheek stuff," Ziegler said. For the record: There is no official wagering on any of the wacky races at Emerald Downs. "People ask that, especially during corgi races. 'Oh, can you bet on them?' I'm like, 'No, you can't bet on the dogs. These are people's pets!'" he said. The T-Rex race winners get an oversized trophy with a dinosaur stuffed animal on top. There aren't a lot of rules and regulations -- some younger competitors ride inflatable dinos instead of getting into costumes -- but Ziegler said he's relieved the adult races have yet to end in controversy. "We haven't had to disqualify anybody for their head coming off. Technically speaking, if their head comes off, they really shouldn't be winning the race, because then they could see," he said. New has interviewed the winners of the T-Rex races several times, including on ESPN. "Every time, they said that they could not see that they won. They had no idea that they won. They found out afterwards," he said. The T-Rex races now attract runners from abroad. There was a teacher who flew in the morning of the event, ran in an inflatable T-Rex costume on a horse track, got back on a plane and was home in her bed that night -- all at the encouragement of her students. There was a mother and her sister who traveled from the East Coast to run together. There have been ex-athletes who traveled to Seattle and took the heats quite seriously, even as their T-Rex heads were bobbing along to the finish line. "I interviewed last year's kid winner," New said. "I asked him, 'What is it like to be inside the costume?' He said, 'Like I'm on fire, but not really.' So interviewing the children is just really endearing for me." While it's not been at a corgi-races pace, Ziegler said T-Rex racing is slowly starting to catch on in other places: Japan, in particular, seems to have taken to the gimmick. But he's proud that Emerald Downs has been cited as the cradle of T-Rex racing, and he's eager to keep innovating the event -- and think of others. "We basically have eight halftimes, if there are nine races. We throw these family-friendly participation stuff in and it brings people out to the racetrack. It's not just the people that are participating, but their friends and their families come out to watch," Ziegler said. "And then they cheer for the horses, too."