TWIN LAKES — Bed Bugs, surgeons and a 73-year-old woman in a chicken costume were just part of the spectacle Sunday during the annual bed races at the Twin Lakes Country Club.

About 75 people gathered in late-January sunshine to watch teams of five push beds mounted on bicycle wheels and fat wheelbarrow-style tires through the snow.

Two beds at a time raced around an oval track. Of the five people on each team, four pushed the bed and one rode on top. Beds had to have at least three wheels, a frame, headboard and a mattress with springs or a box spring.

In memory of SAM

The Bed Bugs’ bed also featured a bathtub-sized inflatable bug surrounded by pink and yellow balloons.

“It was Adeline’s dream,” explained Debbie Hawes of Twin Lakes.

Adeline Malloy first came to the bed races last year and quickly vowed to take part. Her dream was to participate this year, but illness changed those plans. Malloy, known as SAM — Sweet Adeline Malloy — died in July 2009 from stomach cancer. She was 44.

Her friends gathered Sunday to honor her memory and celebrate her spirit.

Ron Eibl of New Munster made the bed cart from some 1½-inch exhaust pipe, conduit, a headboard and two bicycles. The frames supported the mattress and box spring, while the wheels helped propel the team through the snow.

Pam “Lady Bug” Briggs of Twin Lakes rode on the bed. She and her fellow bugs — Dave Hahn, Dean Fuller, Brett Fuller and George Meaghan, all of Chicago — wore black outfits speckled with round pink and yellow stickers and their race names — “Bed Bug,” “Spare Bug,” etc. — on their backs.

As the lone woman in the group, Briggs added delicate red wings and wore lacy pink and white heart-patterned underwear over her black T-shirt and yoga pants, folded $5 bills tucked carefully inside her bra.

“We didn’t know this was going to be a contest,” Briggs said as she watched the first racing beds collide.

“See what happens when you drink and drive!” someone shouted from the crowd.

Help for Haiti

“I’m a little old to be playing such games,” Carol Mensinger, 44, of Evanston, Ill., said as she prepared to race. Not that that stopped her from dressing up as a surgeon to run with the Indian Point Docktors of Haitian Hope.

The Docktors team — that’s “dock” as in the docks along lakes Mary and Elizabeth, get it? — collected money for Haitian earthquake relief in their Twin Lakes neighborhood of Indian Point.

Wrapped in fake-bloodied gauze, patient Annie Carroll rode on the Docktors bed, while her surgeons — Mensinger and Jack Magnusen of Evanston, Mike Thomas of Twin Lakes and Brandon Coll of Chicago — ran her around the track, adding a little levity to their otherwise serious cause.

Chicken woman

After Mensinger raced, she spotted 73-year-old Kathleen Kaplan of Long Lake, Ill.

“I want my picture taken with her,” Mensinger said.

Dressed in a chicken costume and rubber chicken feet, Kaplan said her costume defined her team: “Mad Dan’s Chicken — that’s what they’re famous for.”

Kaplan said she didn’t care if she looked silly. She’d already gotten breakfast, the promise of a chicken dinner and plenty of laughs out of the experience.

“I love it,” she said.