Sabotage is of the best and worst parts of
CHIditarod. It can leave you laughing or with a totally sour taste in the mouth. CHIditarod wants to help you break out of that winter funk and get geared up for spring, while generating chaos for a good cause. Sabotage can take many forms; some are awesome, and some will get you DQ’d. Here’s how to do it right.
Fake Route maps, time off tokens, giving someone bad directions are all fun and games. Ziptying wheels so they can’t move, creating an app to lock wheel carts, or even tying carts together are fun and games. ULocks where the cart is completely taken out of commission and stuck to public property or another cart is not cool. Being a food drive, anything that wastes food is poor form. Covering someone and/or their cart in food is also not so fun. As CHIditarod is a “leave no trace” event, things like litter, glitter, feathers, or anything else you leave behind is called Matter Out Of Place (aka MOOP) and is really, really bad. Businesses and residents in the neighborhoods we run through will complain to the City about your MOOP, jeopardizing the future of CHIditarod. If that wasn’t bad enough, the hardworking volunteers then need to go and clean up your mess. Classy.
We love how our racers make it through the cold, rain, snow, ice, and on the rare occasion sun and 50 degrees to help
fight hunger and raise money for Chicago’s hungry. Some people come from the city, other come across the country to join in on our race. When planning your trickery, please remember sabotage is not just an excuse to be a jerk. That means do not steal things out of people carts those are actually personal belongings. This also means respecting the personal space of others sabotage should remain targeted toward carts and involve clever trickery, not leave someone feeling personally or physically blitzed. Some people have allergies or asthma, and your fun sabotage could have a notsofun outcome. We’re talking emergency room.
We hope this helps enlighten you as you plan your epic sabotage ideas. Get creative, think out of the box, don’t be a jerk, and be smart about it. If you have any questions about if your sabotage is too much, feel free to shoot us an email at chiditarod@gmail.com or ask on our facebook page. Remember there is a nice award for Best Sabotage. We won’t warn any racers what you have up your sleeves, but if you want to win and not be DQ’ed, think before you sabotage.