Racing in Quebec City

[SlotCarCorner]

First I would like to take a moment to thank Christian for hosting a great race event. Next I would like to thank Christian and Georges for opening their homes to us for the weekend - we always feel right at home. Finally, a big thank you to Sylvie for one wonderful Sunday Brunch - the food was delicious (I would be remiss if I didn't mention the meat pie Lynn made too). When we attend these race events, they are as much about spending quality time with friends as racing our toy cars. Yesterday we ventured outdoors to watch the canoe race - no that is not a misprint, they actually have a canoe race across the (mostly frozen) St. Lawrence River as part of the Quebec City Winter Carnival.

Here's a picture of one of our hosts Christian (right) relaxing on an ice bench with my son Tom before the race. Let's just say there is no shortage of ice and snow in Quebec this time of year.



This is the start/finish area of the canoe race - you can see the canoes off in the distance.



Next is a shot of the so-called race course. Those are ice flows that cover about 90% of the St. Lawrence River. The tug boat is there for safety in case any of the racers get into trouble (one participant suffered a broken femur). Some of the "chunks" of ice weigh thousands of pounds and the ice is constantly moving with the river current.



And here is a shot of some of the participants. These are serious athletes in every sense of the word. They train year-round for these events. In the women's race, the first and second place teams were only separated by 3/10th's of a second!!!



The temperature was around 0F and the wind chill was brutal (I'm guesstimating the wind was blowing around 25-30 mph).

If your travels take you to Quebec City during the Winter Carnival, be sure to check out the canoe race!!

:banana-dance:

[cgingras]

And here's Steve and his son, on the river bank.

10956204_10152563032261394_3796926585960941952_n.jpg

[vins123]

thanks for sharing those nice pictures
Sylvain

[nhdungeonracer]

Yeah... To say it was cold standing on the riverbank would be a understatement. It was FREAKING cold!!!!! After about what I would guess to be about 45 minutes, I suggested perhaps we'd seen enough. The response was... We certainly have!! As we turned to leave, I noticed about 1/2 of the spectators on the riverbank were leaving as well.
I will say the participants in the canoe race are truly hardy people. They would sure put a lot of stick and ball athletes to shame.

[rperry240z]

Hello strangers!! It looks like you all had a great time :D Just dusted off my track..first time since last spring trying to get back at it..... Changed jobs again (by choice) takes awhile to adjust and have time and energy to play!!

[Smokeio]

Hey Rob, glad to hear from you. Hope to see you racing soon!

[dreinecke]

Great race report! I'd love to browse the wall of parts with a LARGE box to take home...

As for the "canoe" races...you are all nuts up there! No way, no how...and that's coming from a guy that loves winter! Just not on a river, in a boat, with 1000 pound ice cubes around me!