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Hot dog! These wieners run fast

April 8, 2026

A bright yellow rubber chicken. A tail on a string. A vacuum cleaner.

What do these things have in common? They motivated four-legged competitors to run like the devil while a crowd of hundreds went wild.

The 2026 Wiener Nationals Dachshund Races at Old World Biergarten in Huntington Beach was packed with action recently, as dozens of hotdog-shaped pups flew across the courtyard.

Two by two, the dogs were released from behind a gate. The goal: All four of their 3-inch legs must pass over the yellow finish line faster than their competitor in the next lane.

One by one, dogs were eliminated after racing twice. Dogs race each month and the qualifiers will go on to the championships on Nov. 15.

The next race day is April 12.

Katella King, left, with Bubu, and Caitlyn Crabtree with Murphy, take part in the first of the 2026 Wiener Nationals Dachshund Races at Old World Biergarten in Huntington Beach on Sunday, March 8, 2026. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Inge McKellop, owner of the Wiener Dog Store at Old World Village in Huntington Beach, started the races in the early 90s. She invited a dachshund club from the Santa Ana Valley to visit the German Village and race their dogs for a one-time event. It was so popular that it became a regular feature at the village. She keeps this photo from the first races displayed in her store. (Photo courtesy of Inge McKellop)

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The race track has been perfected since the early 1990s when Inge McKellop started the event as a fluke.

McKellop’s parents, Lina and Emile Erbacher, came to the U.S. from Germany in 1950 — five years before she was born in New York. “There was nothing worth anything in Germany” after World War II, she said. “When they arrived, they kissed the ground under their feet.”

The family ended up in California, living in Laurel Canyon. McKellop’s hard-working father, who had “maybe a sixth-grade education,” she said, forged a successful career as a car mechanic and eventually owned a BMW dealership and a Mercedes-Benz dealership.

“Lina, look at this,” Erbacher told his wife while reading the paper one day. “They’re building a German village in Huntington Beach.”

Old World Village was built on 8 acres in 1978 to resemble a quaint European town — complete with a biergarten for Oktoberfest celebrations. Shops lined red cobblestone streets, and shop owners were required to live in the 800-square-foot apartments upstairs.

The couple fell in love with the village and bought a unit. Many of the original buyers still own property there, McKellop said. The City Council has since changed the rules requiring store owners to live on site.

“American people have the best of everything except coffee,” McKellop recalled her father saying. So the Erbachers decided to open a coffeehouse.

Her dad used the skills he learned as a young man in Germany to install wood flooring and countertops. Her mother used hers to bake breads, strudels and cakes. The couple also sold inlaid wooden tea carts from Italy, and beer steins and glassware from Germany.

When they retired in 2000, McKellop took over the business, phasing out items that didn’t sell, and eventually turning the shop into The Wiener Dog Store at Old World Village. It is a dizzying display of everything dachshund, including handmade harnesses that she taught herself to sew by “taking a class at JoAnn’s with 10-year-old girls.”

McKellop said she was always looking for ways to introduce people to the community when one day, while scanning a German newspaper, she read an article about the Dachshund Club of Santa Ana Valley.

“I invited them to come to Old World to teach people the history of the dogs,” something she knew nothing about, having grown up with beagles, McKellop said.

Dachshunds are clever hunters, bred hundreds of years ago in Germany to sniff out badgers. They can compress their body to fit into small places. Their name directly translates from German to mean “badger dog.”

The American Kennel Club describes these low riders as “smart and vigilant, with a big-dog bark.”

When the Dachshund Club accepted McKellop’s invitation, she didn’t know what to expect.

Club members arrived with six dogs, which they raced down the cobblestone while dozens of people, including shop owners, lined the streets to watch.

When the one-time event was over, McKellop was enthusiastically thanked for hosting such a fun day.

Fast forward a year and McKellop’s phone was ringing off the hook. “This was before we had email and texting,” she said. “People were calling, asking ‘When are the wieners coming?’”

She told the community’s board of directors, “Someone should do something about this, and they said, ‘OK, do it.’”

“It was a nightmare,” she said. But she managed to build a track using her “German ingenuity and versatility,” even hiring some local homeless people to help out.

She set a date.

“If we get a dozen dogs,” McKellop thought, “that will be good.”

Seventy-two dogs showed up, she said. “And that’s how it all started.”

Each month the races attract hundreds of spectators to the patio area of the village, where several qualifying heats take place during the day’s two races.

Competitors can’t place or throw anything on the 108-foot-long track. But otherwise, they can motivate their runners with food, toys and anything or everything in between.

Amber Garcia of Tustin and her two-time champion, Okja, are going for a three-peat.

Last month, Okja qualified for the championship race that will crown a winner in November. The 12-pound silver and black dapple will have to beat dozens of competitors.

When Garcia’s boyfriend Scott Mendoza’s dogs had puppies, she fell in love with the firstborn “crazy puppy.” The dog would charge up the hillside looking for lizards and other critters while the other dogs played together at the bottom.

Okja was a 2019 Christmas gift from Mendoza, but the little hellion didn’t start racing until age 2 because of the pandemic.

Before race day, Garcia said she will modify Okja’s diet by replacing junk treats with cucumbers and bell peppers.

Garcia doesn’t use gimmicks to get the dog’s attention.

Okja “knows what to do and wants to win,” she said.

Meanwhile, at 70, McKellop questions why she is still involved in the races.

“But it’s such a pleasure,” she said.

And then she remembers her father’s words: “I don’t care what you do in life, even if it’s selling shoestrings, do what you enjoy.”

If you go

When: Each monthly race day starts at 11 a.m. and a second race session is at 1 p.m.; the next round is April 12

Where: Old World Village, 7561 Center Ave., Huntington Beach

Cost: Standing room admission for adults is $10, VIP seating is $18

Information and schedule: oldworldhb.com/dog-races

Hot dog! These wieners run fast Orange County Register

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Hot dog! These wieners run fast

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