Ode to the GT Snowracer

A good friend once mentioned to me the strangeness of how a city can change a person, and change priorities. Rossland has quietly adjusted my priorities to a point where last week I found myself going to the grocery store in my long-johns. If that weren't shocking enough, I'm told people also frequent the store in their ski boots and/or cross-country spandex. I remember a time, no-so-long-ago, where I felt like a slob going to the Wal-mart in sweatpants.

Rossland was built on the side of a mountain. My humble abode has an awesome approximation to the most things in town (groceries, the Legion, cheap beer), all within in a one-block radius. However, if I exit that magical circle (and sometimes I have to), I will be heading up or downhill. Couple that with the snowiness of winter and my newest priority in transportation is a GT Snowracer. In Rossland, "GT" is a verb.

Christmas. Early-to-mid 1990s. Santa brought me a white and blue NOMA GT Snowracer. Fully assemebled by the elves, Santa even left the cardboard GT box on the front steps of the house! The next year, my younger siblings also got GTs (purple and neon red-ish for Roxanne, black for Markus) and we had ourselves a fleet! Happy days for the Selkirk family! 
After our 1997 move to Medicine Hat, the GT use declined to a halt, mostly due to lack of a worth-while toboggan hill. Eventually, the GTs were quietly hauled off to the Sally-Ann. Fast-forward ten years and the number-one pick on my Christmas list is a NOMA GT Snowracer! Only NOMA doesn't make them anymore.

The lesson here, folks, is never get rid of anything.

I've scoured the internet, and it's really amazing how little information exists on GT Snowracers. The top Google results are Canadian Tire's current GT offering and Kijiji classified ads wanting or selling GTs. A quick glance through the Canadian Tire online reviews of the latest GT incarnation (not by NOMA) looked promising:

"The Canadian Tire ones are craptacular and will break if you look at them the wrong way."

"Useless junk: Nothing like they used to be, not like image on web, not like image on box. Low quality from start to finish. Need a hammer to make the parts fit, and a knife to trim off extra plastic. No chance it lasts one winter."

Promising, in that it looked like a guaranteed way to waste money and be disappointed at the same time! Something I hadn't done since I thought I was getting a really good deal on 99-cent deli ham at the local grocery store! The obvious solution was to go back in time and never get rid of my old GT. The second-best solution was to get my hands on a retro model of everyone's favourite three-ski toboggan. How would I do this? Would I post want-ads on the internet? Would I probe the plethora of online classifyieds? Probably both! But first, I would whine about it on facebook.

Status update: All I want for Christmas is a NOMA GT Snowracer!

In a moment that can only be considered a Christmas miracle, a friend on mine commented on my status saying that not only did he have a NOMA GT Snowracer, he had one stored away just waiting to be loved again! The GT was in snow-starved Medicine Hat and with a couple of phone calls and the help of my parents, the GT was mine.

Isn't she a beaut?

I am now going to present to you a mostly made-up history of GT Snowracers. Google failed in giving me any real information on them, and Wikipedia fails to even acknowledge NOMA as a current Canadian company. Here we go:

In the beginning, it was ninteen-ninty-something. Probably. Maybe 1991. NOMA, a company known chiefly for Christmas lights, decided to branch out into the cut-throat toboggan market, fiercely competing with these classic models:

Classic Toboggan. For maximum effect, wax the bottom of this baby.

Flying Saucers. The least-steerable, least turnable, and potentially most dangerous on this list.

Crazy Carpets. Light to carry, easy to slide off.

Inner tube of tractor tire.  A Selkirk classic. Pile seven people on one and zoom down the hill. Bonus points if you can bounce off the top person (your sister) with enough time left to run her over after she lands! Also, I don't know the guy in the picture, but I'm sure he has good stories to tell.

NOMA decided to revolutionize tobogganing by designing the well-known three-ski model, besting the entire toboggan industry. How? Steering. And neon. 

Now I present to you, the made-by-me, sponsored-by-google-image-search, visual GT history:

GT Classic. This is probably one of the first ones. Standard GT features: three plastic skis, steel frame, seat, brakes. Unique to this incarnation: Square ("aircraft syle") steering wheel, and colours that scream "I'm from the early nineties!"

GT ProRacer. GTing for grown ups and very large children. Bigger skis, bigger possibilities. Heavier to carry uphill. Classic black.

GT Stealth. Additional plastic bits have been added. I've always thought that if you wanted to be stealthy on snow, you might want to be riding something white...

It also comes with radar, buttons, and various meters/gauges!

Retractable pull cord!

Brett Hull GT. Same mold as the stealth, cool hockey colours. I'm also told there was a Wayne Gretzky model.

GT 2.0. This is when I got on board with the GT. New innovation: round steering wheel. Seat stripes are perpendicular to skis instead of at an angle.

After this, I'm not sure what happened. At some point, NOMA passed on the rights to the GT Snowracer. Which brings us to the 2011 options for GTs: Canadian Tire. There is also a European company (Stiga) that makes what I'm sure, is a higher quality version. High quality enough to stock and sell replacement parts!

What ever happened to NOMA? Well, they still sell Christmas lights. They've also branched out into thermostats, power cords, and light bulbs.

And whatever happened to me and my new GT? When it snows a lot, I join the Rossland GT gang on the streets of town, zooming all over the place in the amazing GT outfit of insulated coveralls and retro ski toque:

Markus and I doubled on the Stealth and he took this action shot:

 I may be older, but I'm pretty sure my GT face is still the same at it was 15 years ago.