CAMDEN (AP) – The 18th annual National Toboggan Championships, a tongue-in-cheek competition in which some participants race in outlandish costumes, resumed Sunday after a crash that sent six people to the hospital.

Organizers suspended racing Saturday after a four-person toboggan careening down the 400-foot chute smashed into another toboggan that had turned onto its side in the chute, said Jeff Kuller, manager of the Camden Snow Bowl.

Six people were taken by ambulance to Penobscot Bay Medical Center, and one of them was later taken by helicopter to the Eastern Maine Medical Center, Kuller said. He declined to release the names of the victims.

The injuries included broken bones but were not considered to be life threatening or “life changing,” Kuller said Sunday.

Operators reviewed their procedures to figure out why one toboggan was allowed down the chute prematurely before deciding to continue Sunday with competition featuring four-person, three-person and two-person teams.

“We wouldn’t run it if we thought it was unsafe. But it’s run by people. Things can happen. We consider this a very unfortunate accident,” Kuller said.

Several thousand spectators were watching and knew that the crash was imminent because it takes 8 or 9 seconds from the time a toboggan is launched at the top of the chute to the time it reaches 40 mph at the bottom.

Kuller said it was the first time he could recall a toboggan overturning in the ice-covered wooden chute, which is just wide enough for a toboggan.

At least one of the four members of the overturned toboggan managed to scramble to safety and a second was trying to get out of the chute at the time of the impact. There was no way for the toboggan coming down the chute to stop.

It was a disappointing end Saturday to an event that revels in its silliness. The competition features 400 teams from as far away as California with names like “Freezing Floridians,” “Sled Zeppelin,” and “New York Knickerbockers.”

The competition raises money for the Camden Snow Bowl, a nonprofit, municipally owned ski area on 1,300-foot Ragged Mountain. The ski area’s toboggan chute dates to the 1930s.

It wasn’t the first time participants have landed in the hospital emergency room after a trip down the toboggan chute.

Over the past four years, a toboggan once slid across frozen Hosner Pond and smashed into an ice-fishing shack and a participant was struck by a toboggan while walking across the pond in another incident, Kuller said.

AP-ES-02-10-08 1130EST