What does Washington and an outback town in Western Australia have in common? The sport of racing humans in dinosaur suits.
Organisers of yesterday's Norseman Cup hoped the spectacle would add something unusual and boost crowd numbers for the traditional horse races, which were unable to run last year on the event's 110th year anniversary.
When contacted by the ABC and questioned about the addition, Shire of Dundas staff and CEO Peter Fitchat, said the shire thought it would "spice it up and throw a dinosaur derby into the mix of things".
"About a year ago I saw a video online of these little dinosaurs running and I thought that was a good idea and managed to get my hands on 10 suits.
"I thought it was quite fascinating to see them bolting down the racecourse."
One of the videos of the T-Rex races at a track in Washington state, attracted more than 3 million views.
But it seems the 'sport' of dinosaurs wildly running is a new sight in Australia, at least in recent times.
Jay Divitini said he was roped into the "very hot and tough to run" race by family and then when he won, his supporters called for an encore.
"The family looked at me and probably thought I might have been the quickest out of them all," he said.
"If you saw [my] family you'd probably know that it doesn't take much, so I thought why not.
Entertainment for a country town
Country Racing Association WA secretary John Biggs said he welcomed the dinosaur race as a way to diversify and attract different people to country races.
"Any sort of novelty or anything like that that will attract a few more people to their races, is a great idea," he said.
"A lot of people don't want to necessarily follow the horses, but a day of entertainment for a little country town is great."
Across regional WA, many clubs struggle with increased costs, industry pressures, a downturn in the breeding industry and less racegoers.
While Norseman's population has suffered a significant decline in recent years, insufficient horse nominations was the reason for last year's no-horse cup.
Meanwhile, Mr Fitchat said he hoped the dinosaur race would become an annual feature and he wanted to "innovate a bit more," with future plans to host music and other sport events on the same weekend to boost attendance.
