Northern cities lose snowcross events to inflation, pandemic

The Canadian Snowcross Racing Association appears to be dropping two northern cities from its 2023 lineup.

For years, Snowcross racing brought hundreds of high-octane snowmobilers to Timmins. But the event’s Timmins organizer, a retired pro snowmobiler, said the fallout of the COVID-19 crisis turned out to be too much to bear.

“Coming out of COVID, with the inflation increase, it was just really hard to put the event on,” said Angela Vacchino.

“Between the amount of snow that we had and working with the city and all the departments, it was just really hard to get in line last year.”

The news came as a surprise to city officials, who only got word of the cancellation on social media, not from the association itself.

The city gave the for-profit group $25,000 in tourism funding last year but it didn’t reapply this year.

“We are disappointed,” said Noella Rinaldo, of the Timmins Economic Development Corporation.

“We were hoping they would come back. It’s a great organization, it’s a great event. The $25,000 is a generous amount, I think, but unfortunately, I guess it just wasn’t enough for them to come back.”

“Ultimately, it’s going to come from those organizers and volunteers, who want to put their ideas together and host an event and we’re more than willing to help,” said Lacey Rigg of Tourism Timmins.

Vacchino said the $25,000 did help, but was outweighed by costs that weren’t around in previous years, such as for tables and chairs, pylons and bleachers.

A lack of available equipment for the event was also a challenge, she said, plus clunky communication with the city, when heavy snowfall affected parking.

Vacchino said the association ultimately decided to let the event cool off for a year.

“They said, sometimes we need to leave a community, for them to realize … the impact it had on them,” she said.

“City hall, tourism, Timmins police, Timmins Fire Department, public works and the CSRA, we all need to work together.”

Officials with Timmins economic development said a conversation likely needs to be had with the snowcross group about what went wrong and what can be improved for a 2024 return.

The Timmins Snowmobile Club, for one, said it would be willing to offer equipment and volunteers to help prepare the race tracks and facilitate the event.