Most of 2016 La Biche Winter Festival of Speed cancelled due to ice thickness

Lac La Biche Festival of Speed 386Photo by VelocityMotorsportsNews.com Northern Alberta Sports Car Club (NASCC) Ice Racing at the 2015 Western Canadian Championship at the La Biche Winter Festival of Speed

It is with regret that the Winter Festival Of Speed Organizing Committee announces the cancellation of the on ice portions of the event for this year. This means that the car races, the motorcycle races and the fly-in are canceled for this year. They are attempting to salvage the snow-drags and the poker rally if we can find a land based site for them to run on.

They went out today and built a number of test tracks and found there was too much water coming through the ice in too many places. As well there was only 20 to 22 inches of ice. They had larger areas with over 4 inches of water and some areas where we could see water ‘pumping’ and creating holes.

So with weather reports of temperatures being primarily around zero for day time highs and only -8 at night there is no possibility of the ice repairing itself in time for the event. The ice would simply be too dangerous for a spectator event and potentially for the competitors and support personnel.

We had high hopes for a good event this year as the winter started as being cold with little snow cover so the initial reports were that the ice was forming nicely. Then el nino or something kicked in and they got snow, but very little cold weather.

So there’s always next year!

Northern Alberta Sports Car Club (NASCC)
http://nascc.ab.ca/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/19068689376/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/motorsportvolunteers/

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