by Paul Falardeau (Arts & Life Editor)
Email: cascade.arts@ufv.ca
Invented on the OLN travel program Departures this new weird sport may just be the most timely we have published in this fine weekly. As you may well have already noticed, Abbotsford is proud owner of many new roundabouts, and we can only assume that this trend will continue. Now, that leaves the question, as our fair city and the entire province blossoms with circular roadways: what do we do with all these merry car-go-rounds?
The answer is extreme roundabout.
While in New Zealand, Departures hosts Scott Wilson and Justin Lukach partake in a variety of the extreme sports that the country is known for, such as bungee jumping, repelling, going down a watery hill in a giant hamster-ball, and more. Inspired by the daredevil kiwis, the pair of travellers decided to make their own extreme sport. And so, Extreme Roundabout was born.
The basic rules of the game are simple: in your car, you try to battle the G’s as you try to complete ten rotations of the roundabout without succumbing to the centrifugal effects of quickly driving in a circle. Essentially, extreme roundabout is to stock car racing what table tennis is to regular tennis. Of course, this is a lot more fun and includes less involvement from Rednecks.
This opens up many options for different modes of play. For instance, time trial modes are great for those who want to see who can get ten rounds in the least amount of time, or endurance rounds will find players trying to reach the maximum number of rotations without vomiting, passing out or crashing.
That leaves the most exciting form of extreme roundabout, the ultra-competitive versus mode. Roundabouts with two lanes allow two drivers to go head to head in a race to complete the ten laps before the other. There is also the death match version of versus, in which racers drive in opposite directions, adding another layer of excitement to the race.
If you haven’t guessed already, extreme roundabout earns its name with a healthy amount of danger and shouldn’t be attempted by those untrained in the art of roundabout. Busy roundabouts are not the place for extreme roundabout, and extreme roundabout might become too extreme in extreme weather conditions. A suggestion for those who aren’t ready to brave the big time roundabouts is to make up your own roundabout with safety cones on a quiet field or the like.
So extreme sports enthusiasts, give extreme roundabout a try. It might just be the best use you’ve found for roundabouts yet, and hey, as a result, maybe a few people will learn how to drive through a roundabout properly. Or maybe not.
