September 22, 2013
By Staff
BURLINGTON, ON. It was the 4th Annual. They shut down the lower part of Brant Street to let it happen and happen it did. The Amazing Bed Race, a fund-raiser for the Joseph Brant Hospital’s redevelopment saw a number of new entrants. Smith Funeral Homes took the Best Entry prize for an imaginative entry.
They called themselves the Overtakers and along with earning the Best Entry prize they got into the quarter finals as well. The knocked off the Mike Wallace Tories in an elimination race only to be knocked off by the Jane McKenna Tory’s in the next elimination. Great fun.
Not only did the “vehicle” tell the corporate story but it made it to the quarter finals as well. Calling it a bed was a bit of a stretch though.
The crowd for this event – well it could have been bigger because it was good entertainment. The teams push and they push hard. As the elimination races began to take place there was a run off between “beds” from two landscaping outfits – and they were competing in every sense of the word.
The event is a fund-raiser but one got the impression there was a lot of corporate image on the line. The Tories were all over this event as well. MP Mike Wallace, looking very trim, lead his team while Jane McKenna, who was away at a Tory provincial convention, was led by a team done up in major blue costumes.
There wasn’t a Liberal or a New Democrat to be seen. The Greens weren’t to be seen either.
The McKenna Tory team, in their sleek blue costumes, edged out the Smith Funeral Overtakers in the elimination races.
This one wasn’t a race – it was more of a route. The patient looks pretty concerned about the runner
Leggat Mazda had to push past the 007’s to get themselves to the finals – which they did.
The BayHawks Soccer Team beat out the team from the hospital and went on to give the automotive people who were eventually the two finalists a very good run.
Mike Wallace has probably never run as hard in his life. Valiant effort but the Overtakers laid the Wallace team to rest.
That looks like a tie – but it didn’t end that way. The bank lost out the hospital team.
The tone for the event was set by the judges who apparently didn’t take themselves all that seriously.
If you pushed a stroller – you were a winner.
Good clean starts
The finalists getting out of the starting gate. Acura on Brant beat Leggat Mazda in a well run race.
The races begin with time trials. Each “bed” runs the short course twice, which then sets them up for the races that lead to one final event which for Burlington this year came down to two automotive dealers racing against each other. The McKenna bed and the Smith Funeral bed hung in right to the end.
Good clean fun – with a camera crew coming uncomfortably close to being wiped out on more than one occasion.
The rules require each bed to stay in its lane, which, given the steering mechanism on these “beds”, made that somewhat difficult.
With four years’ experience behind then – this could become an even more significant event, with the high schools running against each other, the political parties fighting for supremacy and the city’s corporate sector out there in force.
Could city hall challenge the Region? Could Roseland challenge Aldershot? Could some of the golf clubs challenge one another. Lots of room for growth on this one.
The Stroller races were a delight – there was one girl who figured out quickly how to get her stroller up that course quick,quick, quick. She tilted her stroller back onto the rear wheels and let it fly.
For the 2013 Amazing Bed Race it came down to Acura on Brant beating LeggatMazda in the final race.
The event is presented by Scotiabank and organized by the Joseph Brant Hospital Foundation and the Rotary Club of Burlington North. In its first three years the event raised over $272,000.
Teams are formed and either makes their own bed or rents a bed from the organization then they get out and do their fund raising.
