A Gambler 500 racer hauls out a load of tires that had been dumped in the Olympic National Forest.

Photo courtesy of Tevya Friedman

The upcoming Washington Gambler 500 Sasquatch Run might be the worst race in the world.

Imagine a fleet of bizarre, souped-up, modified cars, the uglier the better. Unreliable? Perfect. There’s a prize for the most breakdowns during the eight-hour race through the Olympic National Forest.

If the vehicle looks like garbage, that’s perfect because they’re going to haul out garbage, anyway. In fact, you could luck out and win an award you didn’t know even existed, like “Largest piece of trash in smallest car.”

According to Tevya Friedman, race leader, Gambler races are held nationwide. They’re basically off-road navigational challenges using cheap, improvised vehicles.

For three years running, race organizers have chosen to work with the National Forest Service and Department of Natural Resources to help remove trash from national forests. During the year, the Forest Service fills Friedman in on dump locations, and those become waypoints in the race.

Teams compete to see who can pick up the most trash in the fastest period of time, and make it to a central campsite, where drivers stay overnight. The gamble is whether a driver will make it to camp, or not.

“We’ve made helping competitive,” Friedman said.

Racers from Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Oregon will compete in the Sasquatch Run this year. There’s no fee to enter the race, but drivers pitch in $20 to get a waypoint packet and map on race day, and help pay for camping fees and portable toilets for their campsites. Anything extra is put into an account that the group uses to help organizations in need.

For this year’s race, which begins Saturday, Oct. 2, the gamblers will be pulling up at Center Valley Animal Rescue in Quilcene before the event kicks off, driving in a number of requested items for the shelter.

“I didn’t even know they were there,” Friedman said of the rescue shelter.

He saw the sign on a drive with his son; when he got home he called them up and asked if they could use anything. With the race beginning just a mile down the road, Friedman thought it would be a perfect spot for drivers to donate items before heading to the starting line

Jennifer Simons, who works at Center Valley, said they are thrilled to be offered the support. The rescue shelter compiled a list of assorted items that can be strapped, winched, bungeed or tied to a car and hauled to the facility. A 10-foot panel gate, llama food, alfalfa, and timothy hay made the list, along with fresh fruit and veggies for the animals, round wood fenceposts, and cardboard cat scratchers.

“Doing good in crappy cars,” Friedman said, is the real drive.

In the past three years, racers have not only dragged and bagged more than 100 cubic tons of garbage from Olympic National Forest, they’ve also paid for extra dumpsters when they pickup in excess of what the race dumpster can hold.

“I use the National Forest,” Friedman said. “People have this stigma that this is the government agency’s land.”

“We are the public,” he said, noting that federal management agencies are underfunded and understaffed right now.

While not everyone will be up to the bone-grinding baja-ing of the race, everyone who visits the forest can pitch in.

“There’s no reason not to fill up a trash bag and take it out with you,” he said. “It’s continuing that good karma.”

Good karma should be returning to Friedman and his crew in spades.

During the Okanogan County fires last year, the gamblers used their hybrid autos to haul more than 600 tons of donated hay to area ranchers. Another time, they loaded two pallets of bottled water on cars and headed to the Naches Fire Department. Because of supply chain shortages, the firefighters couldn’t get bottled water.

A lieutenant firefighter himself, Friedman is a public servant with a heart for helping out.

“I got a free Saturday. Let’s do this,” he said.

“If we can do good by somebody,” Friedman said, “why the hell not?”