Bloodshed and booze: New York Times visits the I-500

It was bloodiest year in the history of the I-500 snowmobile race.

As fate would have it, the crowd included a reporter from the New York Times.

Denny Lee's article appears in the automobile section of today's edition, but it talks as much about the crowd's clandestine consumption of beer, bourbon and peppermint schnapps as it does about stock bulkheads and Enduro racing.

When Nathan Dzurka gets tangled in his machine's belt and almost loses his left leg, "the announcer briefly mentions the accident, but the spectators don't seem interested in the details," Lee reports.

When another machine slams into a group of spectators, ending both this year's race and the life of 24-year-old Alynn Burke of Sault, Ontario, Lee describes how a small crowd reacts by gathering around a makeshift "liquor luge" in the snow.

Whether you think the I-500 is the Super Bowl of Enduro or a just a bloody booze-fest that needs to be put on ice, this morning's New York Times coverage is required reading.

To read Lee's article, please click here. (You need to register to read New York Times articles. It's free. For whatever it's worth, SooToday.com has been a registered Times reader for years and has never had any problems with spam, etc. attributable to that source.)