On April 26 and 27, the top athletes in their field will gather at Buda City Park to compete for recognition at one of the top sporting events of its kind in the world. The winner of the two-day competition will be celebrated with cheers, a $500 cash prize and perhaps a long belly rub. It is wiener dog season in Buda once again. Former Buda Lions Club member Diane Krejci, a wiener dog fanatic, remembers when her daughter first saw a race in Savannah. "She called me after the races and she said 'Mom this is the cutest thing you've ever seen,'" Krejci said. After listening to her daughter's story, Krejci saw the opportunity to bring something similar to Buda. Charles Handrick, a current Lions Club member who was at the first race in 1998, said many members of the club were skeptical after Krejci's pitch. "She came to the club and said, 'Guys, I've got a deal for you.' If you can imagine a room fairly full of men and there's this lady telling us that we're going to do wiener dog races needless to say, we gave her the business." Handrick said Krejci's background as a teacher worked in her favor while the club grilled her on the specifics of her idea. "She knew how to slug through it," he said. "By the end of the evening, we told her, 'OK, if you want to do this, you do the legwork. We'll back you up.'" For Krejci, who taught at Tom Green Elementary School in Buda in the late 1990s, the opportunity to team with the Lions Club on the event was a no-brainer, she said. Krejci said many of her economically disadvantaged students were able to get glasses, summer camp admissions and college scholarships paid for by the club. The races have helped extend the group's mission, she said. "It's turned out that they've been able to really do a lot of things they were never able to do before that they wanted to do [because of the races]," Krejci said. Handrick describes the group's mission as "figuring out how to make money so we can give it away." Recently, the group has been working to insulate and wire a new home for a blind couple in Buda. The first race attracted about 36 dogs, Krejci said, and each year the event gained popularity. Handrick said the race's big break came in its seventh year, when CBS correspondent Bill Geist took a trip to Buda to watch the races. The feature aired on "CBS Sunday Morning" and 15 minutes after its airing the Lions Club president's phone began ringing off the hook with people curious about the wiener dog races, Handrick said. In the following year, the races attracted 600 dogs—about 500 more than the previous year. "That kind of really caught us with our britches down, you might say, because we weren't prepared for that kind of crowd to come in," Handrick said. Since its debut on national television, the races have undergone changes to accommodate all the spectators and ensure the event's viability. Bleachers have been added for guests, and nonprofits provide food and drinks for spectators. Other events, such as dog costume contests and bake-offs, have been added to provide entertainment between races. "It's such a successful event because every step of the way we've had support and people that believe in it," Krejci said. "I don't know if it was lucky or if it was just meant to be." The 17th annual Buda Wiener Dog Races will take place at Buda City Park April 26–27. The event costs $3 and is free for children under the age of 12.