MTA team unmakes bed races champs

PALMER — Before there can be a 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the sultans of sleep ran the annual Colony Days Bed Races this weekend at the festival.

Defending champions Team Midas sought to roll over an upstart team from Matanuska Telephone Association on a gloomy day Saturday, the rain stopping just long enough for the teams to run for the 2008 title in the battle of the boxspring.

Preparing to run with his team, Midas team member Derek Granath said he was ready to defend the title won during 2007’s Bed Races. Granath said his team was confident its strategy would prevail Saturday.

“It’s less the manpower and more getting everything right,” Granath said.

Although Midas’ bed wasn’t as pretty as MTA’s — it lacked the brightly colored decorations — Granath said it didn’t matter, because the bed doesn’t have to be flashy to win races.

“It’s not pretty, but it works,” he said.

Granath and his team took on the team from MTA, with one member having a more personal stake in the race. Debbie Pempek of team MTA is Granath’s aunt, and all she wanted Saturday was to beat her nephew at his own game.

“I’m gonna take him,” Pempek predicted before the race began.

With the crowd braving nasty weather, the race began head-to-head, with the Midas team slowly pulling away after the first checkpoint.

The bed races aren’t as straight forward as simply pushing beds down a street. Contestants must complete different tasks at two checkpoints.

Racers had to put on a robe and run around the bed, stuff a pillow into a pillow case, set a dinner table and much more. It was these tasks that became the turning points in the preliminaries among 10 teams on Friday evening, and again as the two top teams squared off.

During Saturday’s finals to determine the winner, the Midas team failed to fill up a cup with liquid as part of the tasks required. MTA’s speed at the second checkpoint, and its near flawless performance, put the upstart in the lead over Midas, which led to MTA’s win.

Unseating the defending champions caused raucous cheers from the MTA team, and team member Marcie Obremski was so out of breath after fending off the Midas team she couldn’t comment.

Looking slightly dejected, the team from Midas walked off the street with their bed in tow. Granath, still smiling after the race, summed up a problem that has plagued athletic teams at all levels.

“We had the speed, but not the follow-through,” he said.

Contact Michael Rovito at michael.rovito@frontiers-man.com or 352-2252.