Recent bad weather won't spoil an attempt by the All-Terrain Vehicle Association of Minnesota to break a record in the Guinness Book of World Records on Saturday.
The record they hope to break, the world's longest all-terrain vehicle parade, is 1,138 consecutive ATVs set in 2006 by an ATV club near Evarts, Ky.
The All-Terrain Vehicle Association of Minnesota (ATVAM) is hoping to smash this record by attracting 2,500 ATV enthusiasts to Silver Bay to participate in the parade, which the association is holding as part of its 25th anniversary celebration.
"Our program has changed a little bit because ... of the rain," said Les Schermerhorn, event coordinator. "We were going to have the staging field down by the AmericInn and the sponsors downtown. Now everything, the sponsors, the staging, will all be by the AmericInn."
So far, 856 riders have pre-
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registered for the event, far short of the ATVAM's goal of 2,500, but that's not discouraging Schermerhorn.
"They don't give me names, but I have been getting lots of calls from people telling me they're with a snowmobile club, they've got about 15 to 20 people coming, can they preregister?" she said. "I tell them that closed May 9, just show up Friday night or Saturday morning and register."
Any registration money left after the parade will be donated to the surviving members of snowmobile/
ATV enthusiast CJ Ramstad's family. Ramstad died in a car accident with his son in May of 2007. He was an ATV/snowmobile enthusiast, the editor and publisher of "Minnesota Snowmobiling," and had written several books on Minnesota outdoor sports.
Guinness officials will not be present during the record-setting attempt.
"It costs between $4,000 and $5,000 to get them here and that was too much," Schermerhorn said. "We've been contacting them through e-mail and they have sent all the specific regulations to us."
Guinness's regulations are that the parade route must be at least two miles, be constantly video taped from three different locations and there must be two official counters from the community of Silver Bay.
"Then I gather all the pictures, all the video and the official count and mail it to the Guinness World Records office," she said. "Then they go over everything with a fine-toothed comb to make sure everything was legal. If we break it, Guinness World Records will mail us our certificate saying we hold that record.
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Silver Bay already was starting to see increased traffic through town on Thursday, and most area hotels and campgrounds have been booked solid by people hoping to be a part of the record-breaking ride.
