Thrills & Chills

CELINA - What was an impromptu idea just five days earlier turned into a thrilling snowmobile race with 150 participants Sunday on Grand Lake.

The event called Ice Drags also came with starting lights, a drag strip and free chili, according to manager of Bayview Sun and Snow Marina and organizer Will Goodwin. The race was held next to the marina.

"It allowed a lot of people to see something they'd never seen before," he said. "For old-timers, it brought back memories of what area snowmobile races used to be like years ago."

Goodwin described Sunday's race as an exhibition-type event where individuals could race against their friends on a two-lane, 500-foot drag strip, have fun, and do something on the lake they hadn't done before.

"Everyone was a winner," he said.

The light tree, which contains a stacked green, yellow and red light came from the mid-90's, when the marina was run by Gordon's father Buzz Goodwin. At that time, the elder Goodwin built the tree for the Fort 500 snowmobile races he started. Those races were held on grass, he said.

Will Goodwin said many old-timers were at Sunday's event who remembered the races, which had grown into an entire weekend event before it stopped twenty-five years ago.

He said it reminded them of similar snowmobile events in the 80's around the lake when his father owned Park Grand Snowmobiles near Shocker's bar.

"They would hold snowmobile races on the ice at Montezuma Bay," he said. "This is the first time we did them in front of Bayview Marina."

Free chili was cooked in a 30-gallon iron pot by marina employees and given free of charge to everyone.

Will Goodwin said planning for the event began last Monday or Tuesday.

"The ice can be so iffy," he said, "but when we measured the ice early in the week, it was ten to twelve inches thick, enough for a snowmobile. Even after the rain on Wednesday, the ice was good and so we were on."

Will Goodwin said he got the word out about the event through social media and hung up some flyers. The Facebook post about the snowmobile race had 30,000 impressions and more than 200 shares, he said.

"The reaction was way more than I expected it to be. We were getting calls all week," he said, adding people from Indian Lake, Versailles and Maria Stein planned to attend. "I even heard there were some people from Toledo there to check it out."

Will Goodwin said the event was held mainly to boost morale and help people enjoy winter, but it also brought a lot of business to the south side of the lake.

"I know Bayview Pub was busy, along with other bars and restaurants on this side of the lake, because once people were done at 4 p.m., they'd go out for drinks and food," he said.

Only one mishap occurred during the day. Kevin Klosterman, one of the volunteers for the day, said he lost a wheel from his all-terrain vehicle and wrecked. When the wheel came off, his rim caught the ice and he was thrown to the ground and his helmet came off, he said.

Klosterman on Monday said he sprained his shoulder which was tended to by a local EMS unit.

"I have always been a lucky guy," he said.