The car on the ice contest

Mike Paulus |

You may have noticed that winter has arrived. And while the local lakes are not yet frozen to the point of safe trans-ice travel, we’ve been thinking about a weird Midwestern phenomena involving lake ice, old cars, gambling, and physics.

We can’t even think of a general term to describe this, but we’re sure that, at some point in Your Wisconsin Life, you’ve seen a small town contest where an old clunker of a car is rolled out onto a highly visible frozen lake, and then people buy tickets and guess what day it’ll crash through anticlimactically submerge itself through the ice. Usually the contest is run by the Lions Club or the Elks Club or the Moose Lodge or the Zebra Squad or something like that. It’s basically a raffle epitomizing the long, slow crawl of winter, with a payoff signifying the coming of spring.

Menomonie does this every year on its conveniently situated Lake Menomin. If fact, this style of contest served as a really cool plot device in internationally awesome writer Neil Gaimen’s novel American Gods, and guess what Wisconsin town he lives near. Hint: Menomonie.

So, yeah, the whole thing’s kind of weird, yet totally endearing in a very Midwestern kind of way. There’s gotta be some environmental problems with purposely sinking a car into a lake, even if you take out the engine and drain the fluids, but I doubt that’s gonna stop the Moose Lodge.

Are there any other towns nearby running such a contest? What is it usually called? Exactly how bad is it for the environment? Is it crazy? Is it cool? Any responses would be much appreciated.