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The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering has spawned a new breed of student-athlete: the coffin racer.

In March, seven ChBE graduate students became champions of the 2016 Coffin Races at the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival in nearby Nederland, Colo. They rose to glory in a bizarre athletic contest in which costumed pallbearers race through an obstacle course while hoisting a homemade coffin and living “corpse.”

Team leader Ben Richardson, a first-year PhD student from Maine, said other teams were surprisingly serious about the competition — and aggressive. But the engineering students proved they have both brains and brawn.

“It was a lot more of a physical contest than I would have believed,” Richardson said.

The annual festival celebrates a colorful piece of local lore. After a Norwegian man, Bredo Morstoel, died of a heart condition in 1989, his body was sent to the United States and cryogenically frozen with the aim of being revived one day far in the future. He later was transported to Colorado and placed in the care of his daughter and grandson until visa and eviction issues forced them to leave the country.

Twenty-six years later, the corpse of “Grandpa” Morstoel remains frozen in a shed in the hills above town, cared for by hired hands at the family’s request. The community celebrates their “frozen dead guy” with icy events that include a polar plunge and frozen salmon tossing.

For the past six years, a team of mechanical engineering grad students from CU-Boulder called the Pink Socks has won the Coffin Races, a favorite event of the festival.

In 2015, Richardson and other prospective students attended Frozen Dead Guy Days during their visit to CU-Boulder and jokingly pledged to assemble a team to defeat the Pink Socks. Remembering his vow, Richardson impulsively registered for the Coffin Races early this year, confident he could pull together a team.

That’s how he found himself driving up Boulder Canyon on March 12 with a homemade plywood coffin strapped to the top of his Chevy Aveo. With minutes to spare, his team members arrived in Nederland to compete, trouncing the competition in every round.

The team, which called itself The Grand Canonical Ensemble, included Cody Barnhill, Alex Delluva, Mike Hjortness, Lee Korshoj, Bryce Manubay and Kim Childress, the “corpse.”

Graduate student Lewis Cox, a member of the defeated Pink Socks, said his team fully expected another win.

“Winning championships had become routine for us. It was expected. And when some young upstarts took that trophy away, we were stunned,” Cox said.

As champions, The Grand Canonical Ensemble walked away with incredible memories, a few bumps and bruises, $300 in winnings and a new legacy to uphold. And the Pink Socks were proud to pass the torch.

“All in all, there are no hard feelings,” Cox said. “It’s for the best that there will be a new reigning champion at next year’s race for everyone to gun for. Team Pink Sock wishes them the best of luck in the races to come.”