INDIANAPOLIS — Give the Borg-Wiener Trophy at Indianapolis Motor Speedway to the Wienermobile affectionately known as Slaw Dog.
In a down-to-the-wire race among the six iconic Wienermobiles that serve as goodwill ambassadors for Oscar Mayer, the hot dog-on-wheels representing the Southeast proved to be the big dog on Carb Day ahead of Sunday's running of the Indianapolis 500.
It made a dramatic pass of the Wienermobile repping Chicago at the finish line to win the inaugural Wienie 500 on Friday.
The margin was about a half a bun.
''You are standing in a moment in hot dog history right now,'' Sarah Oney, who was co-piloting the Wienermobile representing New York with Connor Wolff, told The Associated Press. ''This is the first-ever time we have honestly had all six Wienermobiles together and especially at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.''
It was the definition of a wiener-take-all race, too: The driver and co-pilot of the No. 3 dog, who managed to roast the rest of the Wienermobiles on a cool, sunny afternoon, got to stick around for the 109th running of the Indianapolis 500.
The Wienermobiles have been around since 1936 as a promotional vehicle for Oscar Mayer — not to be confused with Louis Meyer, the first three-time winner of the Indy 500. They travel around the country, logging about 20,000 miles annually, though none were probably as important to the hotdoggers on board as the 5 miles they drove on Friday.
Oney and Wolff jumped into the lead when the green flag flew at the historic yard of bricks, and the six Wienermobiles slowly picked up speed until they reached about 65 mph. They were right in each other's grills down the backstretch, and swapped the lead among themselves several times until the second of two laps, when the No. 4 dog led the field out of Turn 2.
