Shovel Racing World Championships

Article by: © Michael J. Rosen 2012

"Equal Parts Snow, Speed and Courage...Sprinkle in a Little Insanity, Stir Well With a Shovel."*

- John Strader, of ShovelRace.com

As the saying goes, when the snow comes down, you have two choices: Shovel or make snow angels. It's probably clear why ski-lift operators and trail-maintenance workers came up with a third alternative, and it wasn't making a tape loop of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" to broadcast across the slopes: "Let's ride our shovels down the mountains when we get off work and create a new sport." Their first championships were held in the 1970s in Angel Fire, New Mexico, further inspiring precocious children to leave their sidewalks half-cleared and ride their little scoops down the driveway into the street.

The winter Olympic sports are "elitist," says veteran shovel racer John Strader: "We're a working man's sport. Every truck driver in America has a shovel in the back of the truck.... We're the poor man's luge."

Control is the biggest issue in traditional shovel racing, which is performed on a standard grain scoop shovel, with the pilot sitting in the bucket, the handle extending forward like a tiller. But the handle, precariously positioned between the legs and in a straight line for the face, isn't used for steering: Riders drag their hands to keep their shovel on a true course.

One other factor is crucial for successful shovel racing: Waxing the shovel, which, depending on the rider, might mean actual wax (ski or car), Teflon, or lunchmeat-ham is the most popular.

Racers can also compete in two other classes, with light-modified- or super-modified snow shovels. These "vehicles" use nitrogen-filled pneumatic breaking systems, along with independent hand and/or foot brakes, yet no one has actually figured out an effective way to stop someone going 72 miles per hour on a shovel. Riders can risk pulling up on the shovel handle while using their feet to stop; "go corpse" (lie flat to decrease speed); or, as any self-respecting athlete would choose, crash.

The light-modified shovel resembles a street luge, weighs under 100 pounds, and does not require a roll cage or harness (super modified does). Recklessly reaching top speeds of 74 miles per hour, this modified shovel is completely impractical for digging a rider out from an unplanned burial in snow.

Known to insiders as a "cross between a soapbox derby and a bobsled," super-modified racers are shovels that weigh between 100 and 500 pounds and can blast down slopes at 79 miles per hour. This souped-up class also requires that the shovel must be touching the snow within 12 inches of the rider's butt, and that said rider must have at least two people present to vouch for his sanity before and after the race.

Strader's super-modified snow shovel resembled a torpedo with a windshield on the outside and a NASCAR cockpit on the inside. It was equipped with a protective roll cage and five-point harness safety belt. The biggest spill on a hill since Jack and Jill's legendary fall, Strader's shovel tumbled out of control at over 70 miles per hour, twisting and flipping like an Olympic gymnast; it left him with a broken back, broken leg, and internal bleeding. But it was the sport itself that took the biggest hit; the modified shovel races were cancelled from competition after Strader's spill at the sport's X-Games debut in 1997, forcing the X-Games to choose sports that gave competitors a reasonable chance of walking away without-well, without an inability to walk.

Never to be seen on ESPN again, the sport continued to hold its World Championships until they, too, were nixed in 2005, forcing shovel racers to return their "vehicles" to their previous use, when late-for-work spouses call from their cars, "Can I get a hand, here? I'm stuck in driveway."

Looking for the inside scoop? Check out www.shovelrace.com.

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