Baltimore takes great pride in the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, but the event actually got its start in California, with an eccentric sculptor named Hobart Brown.

“He looked exactly like the Monopoly man,” said Theresa Segreti, director of design for the American Visionary Art Museum. He always wore a top hat. “He had really twinkly blue eyes. He was just a character.”

Segreti first got to know Brown through “Good Morning America.” In 1998, the show covered Brown’s kooky race, which had whipped through the outskirts of Ferndale, Calif., since 1969. Watching it, she thought it would be a perfect fit for Baltimore.

So she invited Brown to come to Charm City. Together, they drove around town to determine the best route for the race. Brown had never held a kinetic sculpture race in the middle of the city before. “He said ‘This is going to be perfect.’?”

The route for the first Baltimore race, held in 1999, included a plunge into the Inner Harbor near the finish line.

“It was pretty crazy and impractical,” Segreti said. Kinetic sculptures flipped over in the harbor after sliding off the too-high boat ramp. Once in the water, they began blocking the route of the water taxis, whose operators were less than amused.

“Hobart loved that idea that everybody had to come to a stop because of us,” she said. Segreti, who needed to win over city leaders, was less keen to cause trouble. “I needed the police to be on our side,” she said. (The race now sticks to the Canton waterfront.)

ctkacik@baltsun.com