I’ve been meaning to write about an event I attended at
Shipshewana’s Mayfest last month, but I lost my notes! So here’s the post, but it’ll be shorter than
I planned...
After the annual Shipshe Mayfest parade on Saturday morning,
an event is held on Morton Street called “The Shipshewana 500.” This involves teams of four people—two inside
a buggy and two pulling it. They pull the
buggy 250 feet down the street, around a traffic cone, switch places (pullers
and riders), and race back down across the starting/finish line. All teams use the same buggy, to keep a level
playing field.
All the teams are trying to break through the elusive “30-second
barrier.” The key to that seems to be
rounding the traffic cone and making the U-turn while keeping as much momentum
as possible. Some of the contestants barely
made it into the buggy as it raced back down the street, hanging on with one
foot and both hands, trying to pull themselves back inside!
An announcer provides plenty of commentary, and crowds (mostly
Amish) lined both sides of the street.
This year there were about a dozen teams entered—mostly fit
young people, but not all! The teams had
names like the Peacocks and the Eagles.
One team came all the way from Pennsylvania.
The winning team was the Eagles, so they got the $100 first prize. Second and third place teams got gift
certificates to local places, with coffee mugs for the fourth place team.
Here’s a video of the action:
For a sample Shipshewana Mayfest
calendar (this one from 2018), click here.