Bernie DeKoven, funsmith: Turtle Racing at your local bar and zoo


When the fun gets deep enough...	Bernie DeKoven, FUNcoach	... it can heal the world.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Turtle Racing at your local bar and zoo

Wikipedia informs us that Turtle Racing that is "a popular event in the Central United States which is usually held at county fairs or picnics in which turtles are placed in the center of a circle by children and are allowed to walk around until one of them crosses out of the circle."

The neat ones at Neatorama recently posted an article about the aforementioned semi-sport having purportedly become "a trend in metropolitan bars like Bucky’s Grill and Pub in Indianapolis." As a newly converted semi-Hoosier, I was especially intrigued to learn that such goings on actually go in locally, at Bucky's Bar and Grill.

My subsequent Internet searches, however, led me inexorably to this video, which was taken, not at Bucky's, but at Brennans Pub in Marina Del Rey, CA, nigh onto my former Redondo Beach stomping grounds (I sigh for the stomps of yesteryear). An illustrative, and preternaturally exciting video, nonetheless.

from Bernie DeKoven, funsmith

Labels: sports

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Bernie said...: Rick Hamrick writes:

There's a place right on Lake Michigan where my wife's family has spent summers for more than 70 years, and the resort hosts weekly frog, toad, and turtle races during the prime vacationing time in late June, July and early August.

It's an event for kids, held at a special race stadium (well, there are bleacher seats for 20 or so) which was designed specifically for the races, with the race track being a set of circles looking much like a large target on the ground. The races were much as you describe: all critters in the middle, first one outside the large circle wins.

Here is a charming 40-year-old article from the local newspaper covering one race day.

I love the phrase "nearly avoided injury" and the Freudian misspelling, "entree". Perhaps the writer was thinking frog legs or turtle soup.

The races were held in classes, even breaking down among all turtles to small ones and large ones, for example. The grand finale was a race where every entrant from all the heats was given one last chance to shine. I have witnessed a few of the events, and that finale is a comedic chaos of wandering little amphibians, screaming children chasing their pets, and adults doing their best not to get in the way.