Monday, May 26, 2014

Shark Sighting at the Flint River Raft Race


Memories of the late, great Flint River Raft Race from grumkin:
John Baker and John Fisher, with the help of Frank Baker and Mark Carol, entered the 2nd Annual Flint River Raft race in 1977. They made a fiberglass shark because "Jaws" had been such a popular movie the previous year. They didn't win the competition. I believe a raft made of beer cans won. After the race, we kept the shark at Lake Fenton for a while. Occasionally, we would take it out, but it was tricky to steer, so it mostly just stayed on the shoreline.





2 comments:

  1. I believe this shark is in an abandon building on Corunna Rd.

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  2. If you look behind the shark in that last picture, you can see the Starship Enterprise raft built by myself and Diane Scott. That's her in the yellow shirt just back of the shark's dorsal fin. I think I'm behind the fin in this shot. ;-) I have to admit the shark was a better job... they passed us on the river like we were stuck on impulse drive. ;-) Nice to see someone else's pics of the race.

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.