SAULT STE MARIE, MI — On February 4, 2023, Sault Ste Marie, MI hosted its 54th Annual running of the International I-500 Snowmobile Race. The race is known as the Grand Daddy of all snowmobile endurance racing. It’s the world’s longest, fastest, toughest, and most-exciting oval race event. Professional athletes from all over the U.S. and Canada ride the monster mile in hopes of winning this prestigious race and adding their names to the history books of snowmobile racing.
If this is how the International I-500 Race is looked at around the world, then why is the Committee working so hard to destroy that?
This year thirty-seven teams qualified for the race with Cadarette Collision Racing qualifying in the number one position. They would eventually finish in a very respectable third place. Two teams that would stir up the controversy at the finish, Tommie Bauer Racing and DL Racing, would qualify seventh and eleventh, respectfully.
If you follow the race at all, you’ve heard that the #19 sled of Tommie Bauer Racing and the #29 sled of DL Racing came across the finish line with the exact same time of 9:05:32:486. The FLO Racing announcers said it looked like the 19 edged out the 29, but by the time the 19 sled came around from his cool down lap, he was handed the checkered flag and Tommie Bauer Racing was announced the winner of the 54th running of the I-500. The timing board still showed the 19 and 29 sleds tied at 9:05:32:486.
I’m not sure of the actual time the race ended, but it was likely between 7:10 and 7:15pm. At 7:18pm, the I-500 Committee posted on their Official Facebook page, International 500 Snowmobile Race, that Tommie Bauer Racing #19 had won in spectacular fashion by a .0001 second margin of victory. That official post by the I-500 on their official Facebook page spread to the Sault I-500 Fan Page and then to more than twenty-eight news outlets across the country. The storyline? Tommie Bauer Racing wins the I-500 in the closest margin of victory in the history of the race! What a great story! There was one small problem. It was all a lie.
The I-500 Race Committee lied to you all. For six days they allowed a fake story to fester in the news until somebody started to press them on the truth. Then, six days after the race, the Race Director, Bill Cryderman, issues a statement regarding the scoring system with MyLaps and how it is used to prevent a tie. He refers to the ‘matrix’, if you can understand what that is, where the system scores based upon laps (both had 500 laps), elapsed time (both had the same time), and starting position (the 19 started in 7 and the 29 started in 11). The I-500 Official Facebook page even added a fourth step in the matrix: fastest lap.
EUP News spoke with a MyLaps engineer, who was present at the race, and found out that when the race finished, both sleds did, in fact, cross the line at the very same time. It was a tie! The MyLaps scoring system, that the I-500 hired MyLaps to use for the race, instantly – and I mean instantly – declared the 19 the winner. There was no hesitation. Nobody tried to get the times to the ten-thousands, nobody called overseas (until the next day for another reason). It was decided on the spot.
The only confusion was the I-500 personnel had no idea why the system did this. Why did the system declare the 19 the winner when it was a tie? Nobody associated with the I-500 race was aware there was a tie-breaking system in place. The drivers were not aware there was a tie-breaking system in place prior to the race. The only one on the grounds who knew there was a tie-breaking system in place was the rep from MyLaps, of whom the I-500 hired to set up the system. The only reason he made the call to Holland the next day was to find out how the programming was done to declare the winner. It was done right.
The I-500 Race Committee knew instantly that the #19 of Tommie Bauer Racing had won the 54th running of the race. Within a couple minutes afterward they learned they actually had a system to break ties. Within that same time frame they published posts on Facebook and Twitter, of which Twitter is still active if you’d like to go see it for yourself. Within a couple days they learned how the scoring system worked to determine the winner. That’s probably Tuesday. Why did they wait until Saturday to finally issue a statement indicating what happened with the race finish? Why did they let all these news agencies run with their sanctioned story of the closest margin of victory in the history of the race at .0001 seconds? Why are they saying they had no idea where that storyline came from?
I wish I could answer these questions for you. I wish the I-500 Committee would answer them for you. They won’t. I can speculate, but I won’t here. Several emails and many, many voicemails have been left with Ric Federeau only to go unanswered. Questions send to Bill Cryderman on Messenger resulted in an almost immediate block of my account. He could have said, “I’ve issued a statement and that’s all we’re going to say on the matter,” but no, he blocks me. One reliable, unnamed source on the board did tell me that “the board of directors are investigating all aspects of this topic and are looking to determine what occurred and how to prevent confusion in the future.”
In case you might be wondering if the problem might lie with MyLaps, when I spoke to their rep he had just flown back from Daytona where they were working with some local officials on their system. That’s right, They have NASCAR, Indy, Grand Prix, Motocross, and many more. They’re not a rinky-dink, fly-by-night organization the I-500 hired for this once-a-year event.
There you have the facts. As to what’s going on behind closed doors with the I-500? What are they trying to hide from you? You’ll have to decide for yourself.
Congratulations still go out to the team of Tommie Bauer Racing. They are the official winners of the 54th running of the Sault International I-500 Race.
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Lost all credibility in my book.
I bet the ISR is embarrassed.
Lame
Why don’t you have a social media account? As a race scorekeeper I have several questions for you. Please get ahold of me bmmackey@svsu.edu 231250114.