WATCH: T-Rexes tear up the track at Emerald Downs

A horse-racing track in a Seattle suburb hosted hundreds of dashing dinosaurs on Sunday for the 2023 T-Rex World Championships, a showdown between sprinters costumed as prehistoric predators that drew participants from across the United States.

The annual event at Emerald Downs in Auburn, Wash., which began six years ago as a team-building exercise for employees of pest-control company Tri-Guard, has grown to be come a spectator favourite that captures international interest.

There’s nothing like a good T-Rex Race!#emeralddowns #exploreauburn pic.twitter.com/gMPw09lemY

— Emerald Downs (@EmeraldDowns) August 22, 2023

Even though the World Athletics Championships in Budapest have dominated headlines in the running world in recent days, Hungary doesn’t have a monopoly on drama on the track, as this year’s T-Rex World Championships proved. Numbering more than 200 participants from states including Hawaii, Washington, Texas, Ohio, Virginia, Louisiana, Oregon, California and Idaho, the event featured eight 100-yard heats, with each of the eight winners qualifying for the finals.

Had T-rexes’ arms been long enough to reach their mouths, the championship finals surely would have been a nail-biter, with three of the eight finalists seemingly crossing the finish line at the exact same time.

Some images from the “T-Rex World Championship Races” at Emerald Downs, for @AP. 🦖 pic.twitter.com/8KD2wwKck8

— Lindsey Wasson 📸 (@lindseywasson) August 21, 2023

After checking the video replay, officials determined Ocean Kim (a.k.a. Botox Rex), from Kauai, Hawaii, edged past second-place Colton Winegar (Deno the Dino) from Boise, Idaho, and third-place Seth Hirschi (Rex Ray Machine) of Renton, Wash.

Both Kim and Winegar work for Tri-Guard pest control, which had 40 employees entered in this year’s championships.  This year’s races were dedicated to Terry Richards, Tri-Guard’s CEO, who died in a small plane crash earlier this year.

Judging from video of Sunday’s races, the pretend predators gave a solid effort—but it’s unlikely they would have been a match against the real thing. While researchers have determined the tyrannosaurus rex wasn’t nearly as fast as was once believed, the carnivores were zippy when they needed to be. Recent simulations have suggested that although the dinosaur’s preferred walking speed was only about 5 km/h, they may have been able to hit speeds of up to 40 km/h.