Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - Kicking off the big Vallarta Pride/Memorial Day weekend, the third annual Pulpito Drag Derby featured 16 high-heeled Drag Contestants competing for $8,000 pesos in cash prizes as they raced up and down Pulpito sidewalks and tackled seven wacky challenges.

Angie Star, sponsored by Coco's Kitchen, won the Pinnacle Resort's First Place check for $5,000 pesos - for the second straight year. La Morena, sponsored by La Noche, took second place for $2,000, and Blondies' Karla Fifi finished third, taking home $1,000 pesos.

The event, hosted at a brisk and hilarious pace by Mexico City-based comedian/drag chartreuse Hugo Blanquet and co-hosted by local real estate star Marc Serrao, began with a Wet T-Shirt Contest (Men's Division). Ten strapping young men in tight white T-shirts rode 'Max,' the Mechanical Bull, to the delight of some 2,000 spectators, were "hosed down in the Pose Down," soaking their t-shirts (some of which had to be removed), as they were judged for 'Hotness, Wetness, Physicality, Personality and Physicality.' The three judge panel declared Brandon Karim the Wet T-Shirt Contest Winner.

A thoroughly mixed crowd of Norteno visitors and Nationals filled Pulpito Plaza - the intersection of Pulpito and Olas Altas - buying souvenir t-shirts and betting on the Derby contestants. Bets placed on the winner won three times their face value in Pulpito Pesos, good for food and drink at many local bars and restaurants.

Special thanks to our sponsors, and the two dozen Amapas Neighborhood Association (ANA) members and neighbors - you know who you are - who volunteered their time and energy to run the Derby, manage the stage, wrangle the contestants, judge the events, and sell bets, beer and t-shirts!

Thanks to many generous sponsors and great crowd participation, this year's Derby netted $50,200 pesos for street improvements and lighting in the Pulpito area, plus an additional $5,000 pesos for the SETAC Community Center, a local non-profit that provides essential services to the GLBT community.

Drag Derby-goers were pleased to see that two of the three Derby-funded planters have now been outfitted with new LED landscape lights and attractive palms and plantings. The second, smaller, planter is across Olas Altas from The Swedes, and just up from Garbo. Two down, and one to go!