User:Dmleach/Crazy 8's

The Crazy 8s is an eight kilometer night road race held annually in Kingsport, Tennessee. The race is billed as "The World's Fastest 8k," as both the men's and women's world record times were set during the event.

History
The race currently known as the Crazy 8s began as the Fun Fest Road Race, a four mile event first run in 1981. The race's start was moved to midnight the next year and its length extended by one mile. Throughout the 1980s, the race was known as the Fun Fest Midnight 5 Miler.

In 1990, organizers Hank Brown and Ben Chaney made a number of changes to the race in the hopes of improving waning participation. Because most sanctioning organizations do not keep records for the five mile distance, but do for the similar eight kilometer distance, the race's length was changed and the Crazy 8s name and theme adopted. In support of the theme, the new racecourse was plotted into a figure eight. Organizers, already planning to change the start of the race to an earlier time, set the race to begin at 9:58 PM.