Two tall wooden boxes stood at the top of the street, each on four wheels. A crescent moon was carved into the front of each, while townspeople waited and watched for the event to start.

A group of teenage girls jumped around in excitement near the two outhouses, not because they were waiting in line to use them, but because they were preparing to race them in the first-ever Outhouse Races in Colo, Iowa, as part of the annual Crossroads Festival.

Their excitement showed as one participant, Meredith Wilson, a high school student, enthusiastically pointed to her shirt, which read, “My love for this race is like diarrhea, I can’t hold it in.”

Wilson was part of the team, Dukes of Hazzard, one of eight teams that participated in the outhouse races Friday.

The festival has been known to have a few fun and wacky ideas for the town members to enjoy.

“I got the idea from the [Iowa] State Fair,” says Deanne Luke, coordinator of the outhouse races. “I thought it would be something new for our small town festival.”

More than 100 people gathered to watch the races on Main Street.

Teams, such as Three Gals and a Turd and Niland’s Farts and Darts signed up in hopes of winning the $100 grand prize or the $50 second place prize.

In addition to clever names, most teams wore matching outfits complete with tights, masks, capes and underwear worn outside of their pants. Some teams completed their ensembles with wadded-up toilet paper stuck to their clothes.

The official rules allowed the teams to build their own outhouses, but two outhouses, made by Luke’s husband, were provided for the teams to race.

Because the races were in their first year, no one had a chance to practice or knew what to expect.

The first two teams loaded their pilots, who sat on the pot, into the outhouse. At the sound of an air horn, the other three members of each team held on to a bar attached to the back and pushed and shoved the outhouses down the street. Teammates found it harder than they thought to maintain control of the john.

Each team had to overcome three obstacles, including lifting up a toilet seat without hands, changing a roll of toilet paper and sloshing through a puddle of muck to find a corn cob on their way to the finish line.

After their race, Sandy Cutler, pilot of the GoLytely Ladies, says the race was fun, but her teammates were going all over the place.

“I was starting to wonder if they were drunk,” Cutler says. “I’m just glad I had the easy job.”

The team Cops, made up of Story County and Nevada sheriff’s deputies, came in second with a time of 108.47, and first place went to Creative Printing, with a time of 108.07, making it a close race to the pot.

In any case, the races provided an opportunity for participants to do their business on Main Street without getting in trouble.