By DEB GRUVER

Staff writer

Ron Traxson spent about as much time — if not more — explaining the rules of the Peabody pancake race as the kids did running it.

After wrangling participants by age group Saturday morning, he told them they’d get a chance to master the course before the official competition started.

“Last year, everyone wanted to do it again, so we’re going to do a practice run,” he explained.

He told the eager kids that they needed to flip their pancakes when he blew a whistle to start the race, when they passed the first cone, and again at the end of the race.

“So you flip the pancake how many times?” Traxson asked.

“THREE!” the children shouted.

“And what are you going to do when I blow the whistle?” Traxson quizzed them.

“FLIP THE PANCAKE!” participants answered.

The younger children’s course was slightly shorter, but several kids passed their turn-around cone and kept running to the next one.

A few hotcake hustlers had mini-meltdowns.

When Harley Traxson won for her age division, someone joked that the race was rigged.

Harley held up one hand when asked her age.

“I used to be 4, but now I’m 5,” she said.

Two-year-old Wyatt Hiebert of Goessel intently watched the race with his grandmother, Patty Traxson. When a train blew through Peabody, he covered his ears and implored everyone else at the picnic table do so, too.

The winners for each group were: Walker Hine, 3; Tanynn Yoder, 4; Harley Traxson, 5; Eliza Unruh and McKenzie Phelps, 6; Ruger Lies, 7; Ryker Yoder, 8; Hayden Hennigh, 9; Josh Hedrick, 11; and Elias Winter, 12.