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Despite winter being upon us, the hipsters of New York took to the streets yesterday with strange, creative outfits and shopping carts in this year's Idiotarod. What's the Idiotarod, you ask? It's like the annual Iditarod from Nome to Anchorage except with teams of human idiots replacing dogs. Some of the more creative costumes we noticed: Wonderwoman, the Noid (think Domino's Pizza campaign), the McDonald's mascots, the Cosbys, Ghostbusters with the Stay Puft Marshmallow man, the Baseball Furies, and a team of male strippers. Also following the race was a penis canon.

Accompanying the racers and spectators was a large amount of police officers and a police helicopter. The cops made it clear that the participants should remain on the sidewalks and obey traffic laws. Of course that wasn't the case at all times, but it seemed like racers tried to obey the rules. The race started in Greenpoint and made its way to Long Island City over the Pulaski Bridge and eventually finished with a tire obstacle course in a LIC park. Perhaps the most disgusting thing about the race (besides the lovely smell of Newtown Creek) were the things that some teams were throwing. There was flour, pizza toppings, fish and fish oil, cat food, and chocolate pudding. We heard that there was one accident along the route with someone running into a car and knocking its mirror clear off.

With the crazy amount of racers and the unclear scoring rules, we have no idea who won at this point. It looks like the point tally will take place today with results revealed tomorrow.

This video will give you an idea of what the scene at the start was like (and one team that says they are actually cops!):

There are now thousands of Idiotarod 2007 pix up at Flickr-- some of the best were sent in by Gothamist Contribute users. Here are a few great shots:

There's also plenty of non-Flickr Idiotarod coverage going up around the interwebs-- add your links in the comments if you did a post.

Idiotarod at mdpNY
Idiotarod at GowanusLounge
Idiotarod at Bluejake
Live Coverage from Gothamist
Idiotarod at RazorApple
Idiotarod at LICNYC
Idiotarod at Suckapants

Photos in slideshow by Jake Dobkin, other pictures by mdpNY and drierp.