The May 2012 Cross-Sim Snail Race

On Saturday May 26, RacerX Gullwing held this month's cross-sim Giant Snail Race. This would be the biggest so far this year, passing through dozens of sims on the mainland. Someone told me there were a total of about sixty sim crossings involved, and thus sixty more chances for something to go wrong.

The race started at a traffic circle in the southeast corner in the Fillip sim, at the northern edge of the mainland atol continent of Heterocera (Gemma Cleanslate wrote on the railroad there earlier). For about forty minutes since zipping past the "Motel 7" inn nearby, the snails slimed their way along the western coast of the land, going past some costal scenery.

Gareth8 Albatros, the winner of last month's race, was "pimped" out in a Union-Jack painted shell. He maintained a good-sized lead, and it looked like he was going to win again. But as they say in Second Life, "lag happens." And a few lag mishaps resulted in the pack catching up to him. At the finish line in Calleta, near the Hobo Railroad Infohub, it was a close finish, but Tindallia Soothsayer was the winner by less than a Giant Snail's length. Spoke Gareth, "Wow, that must be the closest finish ever!" Third was a name I'd never seen at the Snail Races before, Second Life blogger DrFran Babcock.

See a few more pictures of the race on my Flickr page.



*Update* The recording of the race on Treet.tv is now available.

Bixyl Shuftan

The Relay for Life Cross-Sim Snail Race

On Sunday April 17th, what was billed as the "Greatest RFL Giant Snail Race of all Time and Space" took place on the Second Life mainland. The action began at 11AM SL time at the Superior sim, and took place across about forty more. Along the track, spectators lined up (the organizers asked for no more than ten a sim). And of course there was Racer X in his macro-bunny, more recently joined by Sante Klees in his giant kangaroo rat, cheering them on.

Considering the enormous lag the race can produce, I went to one of the spots along the way, Canal and Castle at the Lakeville sim. There, I ran into one of the spectators, waving a Relay flag and cheering. It was Ariel Loonie of Luskwood. We chatted a little, watching what snails we could see through the lag go by. I myself checked on the Treet.tv broadcasts time to time.

Ariel and I were in front of a French restaraunt. Looking in the back was a surprise: a dead racing snail. Green mush leaked from the shell. Was this the fate of the loser of one of the races? No one was talking.

The race would go on for well over an hour. Finally, the first snail crossed the finish line just in front of the Noyo sim. Or was it really a snail? Winner Tindallra Soothsayer had a heavily modified racing snail with an Easter theme, notably a big bunny face. Instead of the bubbly froth most snails drooled, Easter eggs dropped from it's mouth.

Meeting up with Sante Klees later, he told me organizers behind the scenes joked it was a "snabbit." Did being part bunny give it an unfair advantage? Perhaps the next cross-sim race in May will tell.

*edit* The film of the event is now available



Bixyl Shuftan