SAULT STE. MARIE ONT. - “There’s a lot of talent and equipment sitting on this side of the border,” says Cory Furkey, a Sault Ont. race team owner getting ready for the 54th edition of the International 500 Snowmobile Race in Sault Michigan this weekend.
Furkey and his brother Chris are the team owners of Furkey Racing #55 – one of just two teams from across the river looking to qualify for Saturday’s 500-mile spectacular.
The brothers have been involved with the event for the past 25 years, and they won the I-500 as racers in 2004.
Since retiring as a driver in 2006, Furkey says the race has changed a lot over the years.
“It started out as a race where you’d build the best machine you could to make sure it would last all day long,” he says. “Now with higher quality equipment, it’s a fast and furious pace right from the start to the finish.”
Furkey projects this year’s race to last between six and seven hours.
“It’s a prestige race,” he says. “It’s one of the longest standing races out there, and it’s the only one that’s on a one-mile oval. Most other tracks are a half-mile long, so it’s a humongous and intimidating race.”
With years of experience under his belt, the Furkey Racing owner says his team is feeling confident ahead of their qualifiers this week.
“We have new equipment and a new motor package,” he says. “I think we have a pretty good set up. We have a strategy going in that we hope works out. Because we’ve done this a few times, we change the strategy as the race evolves.”
While there have been more mild days than I-500 participants would have preferred as of late, the weather conditions appear to be taking a turn for the best heading into a week full of specialty races and other activities.
“Everybody was worried about the weather for a bit, but they’re starting to make ice at the track now which is great,” Furkey says. “We should have a good week ahead of us.”
The Furkey Racing team includes drivers Ryan McCaig, Aaron Mayer, and Trent Johnson, along with crew members Anthony Mayer, Scott Johnson, Sean Lemay, Tom McCaig, Jake Wright, Randy Deschamps, and Cliff Kerhanovich.
The other Sault Ont. team competing in the I-500 are members from Ritchie Racing.
Meanwhile, Caroline Brandow has been volunteering at the I-500 for the past seven years, but this is the first time since 2020 she feels the festivities are finally returning to normal.
“I didn’t get to do what I normally do at the track last year except for race week because it was hard to cross the border and it was expensive with the testing,” she says.
“There were other Canadian volunteers who were in the same position as me because of the testing requirements. Some of them were only there for the main event.”
Like many I-500 volunteers, Brandow devotes her time at the track year-round and has several maintenance and cleaning related jobs around the area’s buildings and grounds.
Brandow was joined by around 30 volunteers this past weekend doing all sorts of jobs like shovelling, moving snow, and hanging boards and sponsor banners.
At the main event, her job is flagging on the back stretch during the race.
“It’s really fun,” she says. “It’s an adrenaline rush when the green flag drops and you have 30 snowmobiles coming at you.”
Brandow had attended the I-500 as a spectator for years before becoming a volunteer.
“I always thought it would be super cool to help out, but I didn’t know at the time that there were any Canadians involved,” she says.
“It’s a very welcoming group – it always has been,” she says. “Everyone there is super friendly, if you don’t know how to do something, they’ll show you how to do it.”
“It’s truly a community event.”
For a full schedule of this week’s events, visit here.
