May/June 2026 Limerick Laughs Winner and Runners-up

The brother was having a blast.
He loved going downhill real fast.
But going downhill
Made sister feel ill;
This ride was her first and her last.

Congratulations to Joyce Petricheck of Finleyville, Pennsylvania, who won $25 for this limerick based on Downhill Daring, Norman Rockwell’s Post cover from January 9, 1926.

If you’d like to enter the Limerick Laughs Contest for our upcoming issue, submit your limerick via our online entry form.

Here are some of our other favorite limericks from this contest, in no particular order:

A spin in his homemade invention
Sounded fun beyond my comprehension,
But he’s hell on wheels
In spite of my squeals,
Resulting in my hypertension!
—Leanna Fritz, Papillon, Nebraska

You could tell if you looked at my face
How badly I felt out of place.
I just got inside
The car for a ride,
Not to be in some weird downhill race.
—Ronald Vavak, Los Alamitos, California

This was two or three decades ago.
Now he’s racing for crowds as a pro.
But he misses the thrill
Of descending a hill
With a girlfriend who’s tensely aglow.
—Mark L. Levinson, Herzliya Town, Israel

My car, you say, looks like a crate?
That’s something that I won’t debate.
But you cannot surpass
(With today’s price of gas)
Its great fuel efficiency, mate.
—Rudy Landesman, New York City, New York

If you don’t want a gas tank to fill,
This economy car fits the bill.
It’ll run all the time
Without costing a dime,
Just as long as you’re going downhill.
—Sjaan VandenBroeder, Stockton, California

As soon as the starter yelled “Start!”
They raced down the hill in their cart.
And they finished before
Other carts and, what’s more,
Before that old thing fell apart!
—Justin O’Connor, Leeds, Massachusetts

He says he has just what it takes,
But then my poor heart always aches
When he drags me inside
And we go for a ride
In his old rattletrap with no brakes.
—Graham Bruce, Napa, California

Said young Lizzie, “I’ll never be bored
When by Henry I am just adored.
He knows my heart quivers
When I ride in flivvers –
So he built me a Model T Ford!”
—Bob Turvey, Bristol, England

In a go-cart, you do what it takes
As it rattles and wobbles and shakes.
You careen down the hill
Full of moxie until
You remember it doesn’t have brakes.
—Jeff Foster, San Francisco, California