The Bisbee Coaster Race is traditionally divided into two parts: the junior division, for drivers 12-years-old and younger, and the senior division, for drivers 13-year-old to 16-years-old. But this year’s race has a new component, the art car division.

Local artists have built a series of cars shaped like real-life objects. There’s one that looks like a cigar, one that looks like a cup of coffee, and a third that looks like a cash register.

The cars will race on a shortened course, which will start at the top of Main Street. Afterward, they’ll be featured in the town’s annual Fourth of July parade.

Local businesses are sponsoring the cars. The cash register? That’s sponsored by the Bisbee Chamber of Commerce. The coffin? That’s sponsored by Bisbee Ghost Tours.

“The cigar car is mine,” says Poe Dismuke, co-owner of Sam-Poe Gallery and driving force behind the art car division. “If you’re standing on one side it looks like a cigar. If you’re standing on the other side it looks like a rocket ship. I’m trying to get two cars out of one chassis.”

Local Tucson artist John Watt is building a car that will race on Saturday. The car has three wheels, a tractor seat and three or four old radiator fans placed on the back behind the driver.

He calls it his Fan-tastic Resurrection Racer.

Watt says he got the urge to build an art car during a trip to Bisbee last month.

“We were celebrating our 18th wedding anniversary at the Shady Dell. We went on the ghost tour and we were in the Sam Poe Gallery. Poe had a donkey out in front of the studio that was very much like the kind of art that I might do. He said you ought to build a car and come down. That was the 15th of June and we decided to do it.”

You can see Watt’s coaster and all the art cars at this Saturday’s Bisbee Coaster Race. Read more about the race in this week’s Caliente.