DEMING, N.M. — On your mark, get set ... Quack!
They're off and waddling in Deming. Things are just ducky every fourth weekend in August, when the New Mexico town of about 14,000 residents goes quackers for its fowl friends.
It's called the Great American Duck Race, and if the concept of ducks and water seems odd amid the yucca spikes and wide-open skies of the southwestern New Mexico desert, well, that's the whole point.
This is the 28th year for the races, which were dreamed up in 1980 by a circle of six friends.
The group included the late Harold Cousland, then editor of the Deming Headlight newspaper, along with a printer, restaurateur and others who used their jobs to sponsor and promote the event.
And what, exactly, was the inspiration?
"We'd like to be able to say they came up with it at the coffee shop on Sunday after church, but everyone in town knows better," said Jim Reedy, a Deming homebuilder who organized the event in its early years.
"Coffee and doughnuts don't give you such brilliant ideas. The truth is they were drinking at a bar," he said.
The idea was simply to liven up the summer doldrums and bring tourists to Deming. The event is staged at a grassy, tree-shaded park, right under the red-brick, metal-roof Luna County Courthouse.
Organizers said last year's event drew about 10,000 — a far quack from the early years when most participants were locals.
"The first year was more of a community festival. We didn't really attract that many folks from out of town," said Dave Johnson, an Internet company manager who heads the race advertising committee.
Today, the duck races have become the cornerstone of a four-day festival that features all kinds of quacked-up entertainment — an outhouse race, tortilla toss, chili cookoff, horseshoe and softball tournaments and other fun.
There's a carnival and even a royalty pageant in which residents dress up like ducks.
"It's all about having fun. It takes care of a lot of boredom," said Ken Mosher, who stepped away from his job as a plumber and volunteered to assemble the "Duck Downs" racetrack Friday.
There's no laughing off the cash prizes awarded to duck race winners on the final day. Last year, the champions in each category — youth and adult racers — each took home $1,290.
For two decades, participants trained ducks and brought them to Deming to race, similar to the horse racing industry.
But that led to problems. Steve Smith, the lead organizer, said ducks were being abandoned around town after weekend activities, and the competition level was rising to an uncomfortably serious level for such a tongue-in-cheek event.
Eight years ago, organizers began collecting a pool of racing ducks — 160 of them this year.
"They're subjected to a top-secret training program that is passed on from duck wrangler to duck wrangler," Smith joked.
Turning serious, he said: "These ducks are well taken care of. They only work two days a year."
The ducks waddle down an eight-lane, 17-foot channel of chicken wire known as the dry track. In recent years, organizers added a wet track — a wading pool outfitted with eight racing lanes.
Anyone taking part pays $5 to sponsor a duck, and winners advance through tournament-style brackets. In each round, competitors are assigned a different duck, with all the ducks given time off to rest.
"It's a random draw," Smith said. "It's all luck, no skill at all."