Another Sicamous Burnout competition has come and gone, leaving it’s mark, albeit temporarily, on Main Street: a smiley face painted onto the pavement by a peeling out motorcycle tire.
Anyone who attended last year’s event can’t deny that organizers had learned much from it and endeavoured to improve upon the experience. The end result was pretty successful. Security was improved without being overbearing, there were more vendors onsite, the band was closer to the action and the action was plentiful and generally family friendly. For it’s not every day you get to see the captain of the community’s fire department, dressed in his firefighting gear, smoking up Main Street while peeling rubber, or the town barber trying to navigate his hog through a tight obstacle course.
Overall, it appeared a good time was had by all in attendance. And yet, seeing Sicamous’ downtown overwhelmed by bikers seemed kind of odd – a stark contrast to the scene just weeks prior, when the community was inundated by a very different group – news media of all sorts – who had come to Sicamous solely to document the community’s time of crisis.
It seemed no matter where you turned, there was a camera crew, with a reporter standing near, or in the worst of the flooding, making it seem as though Sicamous had become the Venice of the Shuswap.
And, unlike the high water from Shuswap and Mara lakes, this deluge of big media – reporters, photographers and camera operators – was quick to recede, likely to return only if, and when, further tragedy arises.
No doubt plans are already being made for next year’s burnout competition. Regardless of what you might think of the Sturgis North-affiliated event, it’s kind of nice to see a crowd come to town who are all too happy to leave the community with smiling faces.
