WEST BATH, Maine — A three-hour car race Sunday afternoon on New Meadows Lake ended abruptly when a 1977 Chevrolet pickup truck broke through the ice and quickly submerged.
Dozens of spectators had gathered to watch at least 20 vehicles participate in a three-hour endurance race sponsored by New Meadows Racing. Two tracks — one for smaller, four-cylinder cars and the other for motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles — were plowed for races on the frozen inlet.
Although New Meadows Racing officials estimated that the ice was more than a foot thick in some places, Sagadahoc County Sheriff Joel Merry said witnesses told him that “a lot” of the brackish water was seeping up through the ice in various locations throughout the day.
“It was so concerning to some that at one point, they were telling people they needed to move their vehicles that were parked out on the lake,” Merry said.
Then, just before 2 p.m., the rear left wheel of a 1977 Chevrolet pickup truck hauling a trailer broke through the ice.
The driver, 57-year-old Glenwood Fotter of Sidney, escaped unharmed.
By the time deputies arrived, many vehicles remained on the lake and “all kinds of water” was seeping through the ice, Merry said.
Nevertheless, some ice racing enthusiasts were reluctant to leave.
“They really had to order people basically to get off the ice and allow for the operation to remove this vehicle from the ice,” Merry said.
That operation “was very difficult.”
When a line attached to another pickup truck began to pull the first truck, the ice cracked further and both back wheels — and then the entire back end of the truck — sank into the icy water.
A standard tow truck wasn’t able to pull it from the ice, and then a large wrecker used an extended cable to no avail until a local logger suggested they use logs to create a “tripod” to angle the cable down into the lake — at which point the truck was pulled onto the ice.
Crews cleared the scene at about 7:30 p.m. — five and a half hours after the truck first broke through the ice.
Old Brunswick Road from New Meadows Road to Old Bath Road in Brunswick was closed from about 2 to 7:30 p.m. to allow access for wreckers, deputies, firefighters, paramedics and Department of Environmental Protection personnel, as well as spectators who stood to watch, Merry said.
Racing on the lake used to be a common “rite of winter,” Merry said, but during recent winters, the lake has frozen and thawed so many times that the ice hasn’t been suitable for races. Furthermore, the lake is tidal and full of moving salt water. As such, the ice doesn’t settle the same way it does on smaller freshwater bodies, forming ridges and cracks.
This isn’t the first time a vehicle has broken through the ice on the lake, Merry said. Similar sinkings have occurred in past years. Merry plans to meet with West Bath Fire Chief Greg Payson to discuss the events.
“We talked a lot Sunday afternoon,” Merry said. “We want to look into what this might mean in the future. It’s obvious over the last four to five years that the conditions are not what they used to be in terms of allowing a number of vehicles out on the ice at any one time. It’s hard to regulate the number of people and vehicles involved, and as such it lends itself to these accidents. And there’s a potential public safety issue.”