A Toronto man is planning to combine his passion for snowmobiling along with his admiration for the Lake of Bays region in setting a new world record.
Matt Weidinger plans to set the new Guinness World Records mark for the most distance travelled by an individual on a snowmobile over a 24-hour period. The current record is 2,262 km, set by Vince Lofquist of Florence, Wisconsin.
He will try to break the record on a marked course on Lake of Bays near Bigwin Island starting the afternoon of Feb. 17.
“In order to do this you have to average about 100 km/h during the 24 hours and the only place you can do that is on a lake, a very big lake. Guinness knows there are speed limits on snowmobile trails, they won’t recognize anything that breaks a speed limit. There is no speed limit on a lake so that’s pretty much the best place to do this (break the record),” he said.
Weidinger said he and his friends have been snowmobiling in the Baysville area for about 21 years. “There was always a group of us who would come up here every weekend and we always had our sleds at my friend’s cottage. We would ride forever.”
He said he thought the endurance record was one that he could accomplish, and decided one day to try and break it.
Weidinger said he received permission from Lake of Bays council last Thursday to use the Norway Point dock as his staging area for the record attempt on Feb. 17.
“I will start at 2:30 p.m. and go until the next day. I will have to average close to 100 km/h so I can have pit stops and my timekeepers will have to write it down and account for it for Guinness. So I will stop for water and an energy bar and by the time I get that into me the sled will be gassed up and ready to go again.”
Weidinger said the course will be a staked-out trail with reflectors. He said that Guinness officials require a person of notoriety to manage the course so a person from the Ministry of Transportation is going to measure the course.
“You have to have people of notoriety there to verify you broke the record, such as town councillors, police officers, firefighters. You have your own team there from the start, and people can come in from time to time. You have to put two minutes of every hour on video and have pictures taken continually. Every lap has to be counted for, digitally with electrical counters and manually. Then everything has to be put into a DVD and sent to them (for verification),” he said.
Weidinger is not taking this record-breaking attempt lightly. He has been training for the past four months for the ride, doing cardio and strength-training exercises in preparation for the gruelling event.
“I am going to be on the machine and just ride, ride, ride so I have to be ready. I am not much of an excitable person, so my demeanour will help me to concentrate because this ride will be 50 per cent physical and 50 per cent mental. That’s why I want to start in the afternoon so I can get a few hours of day riding in and then when you are fully energized I can get the night ride out of the way.”
He said that while he could have chosen any lake to set the record, he felt the Lake of Bays area was the only place to try and set a new world endurance mark.
“I’ve been snowmobiling up north all my life and for the past 21 years in the Lake of Bays area. The people here are great so why not try and put this great community on the map? Everyone will remember this and that will be fantastic,” he said.