Alaska Sled-Dog Race Organizers Tell NY's Idiotarod 'Cease and Desist'

Photo Credit: mypubliclands

The Iditarod, a grueling multi-day sled dog race across Alaska, is not – not! – to be confused with the Idiotarod, a pointedly sillier affair due to take place this weekend with costumed participants racing modified shopping carts through New York City.

The organizers of the Alaska race, however, are taking no chances. This week, they got their lawyer to send a cease-and-desist letter to the organizers of the Idiotarod.

The letter, which Idiotarod organizers shared on their Facebook page on Friday, says the New York race, with its “slight variation” in name, is breaching the Iditarod Trail Committee’s trademark rights, and said Idiotarod organizers risked a lawsuit to seek damages.

Jon Dawson, the Iditarod committee’s lawyer, wrote that the Idiotarod organizers were causing the public to associate the name “with an event that celebrates wacky costumes and antics over one that honors the endurance and athleticism of champion sled dogs and the courage and skill of the men and women that run them.”

On Friday, Idiotarod organizers called the letter frivolous, and said its 10th anniversary race, described on its website as an “urban spoof” of the Alaskan race, would proceed virtually as planned this weekend.