Ready, steady, and gearing to go, the mayors of both Airdrie and Cochrane are ready to prove which community is going to be the premier leader in the racing community through their upcoming battle in the Cochrane Outhouse Races set to take place on Sept. 17.
Organizer of the Cochrane Outhouse races for the last 10 years, Dan Kroffat, sat down with Mayor Jeff Genung from Cochrane and Mayor Peter Brown from Airdrie, for the upcoming duel of the titans as they explained what they intend to bring forward on race day.
Despite taking a tumble in the 2019 event that cut their race short, Brown said he is returning this year and assures that what occurred last time will not happen again.
“I want to make sure that people still come out, and that it was just a freak-accident,” said Brown, who has a little mishap with his arm in last year’s race. “I’m very excited to be here. Cochrane is a beautiful town, (and) I come for a bunch of different events. The restaurants are great, and the community is awesome.”
Genung thanked his fellow competitor for attending the event and said he really appreciates having the opportunity to finally set the record straight to find out who has the fastest racers in the community.
“This is a Cochrane race, […] this is part of our heritage, so we will take it to the streets and we will have our say,” Genung said.
In addition to bragging rights and undeniably assuring the engineering and physical prowess of the better community, both mayors agreed that the loser must acknowledge the winner by wearing a shirt outlining their loss, and make a clear declaration at their respective council meeting about their loss at the outhouse races.
With the race less than a week away, both mayors declared that they will come out on top. In terms of what gives him a Cochrane advantage, Genung outlines it is his home turf and he knows the layout better than anyone.
“I don’t know how many times I’ve been down that main street in my life having lived here for 40-plus years,” Genung said. “I was born to do this, and this is my community so I’m looking forward to defending that.”
Brown countered Genung’s statement and outlined he has an Airdrie-centric edge that is assured to secure him the pole position.
“Jeff is well dressed, articulate, and everything else, but when it comes to street fighting, he doesn’t have a clue to what he’s doing,” Brown said. “I grew up in the tough part of town, I had to fight my way into everything, [and] I just don’t think he has the drive and desire to knock me off, so we’ll see where it goes.
“I’m going to say I’m looking forward to him host the Airdrie sweater in his council meeting.”
With Kroffat ready to hand off the event to the Rocky Mountain Rotary Club, Rotarian and president, Tyler Hebblethwaite said it feels great to see both leaders come together for this community-oriented event.
“This is our second year doing the Outhouse Races, and this year there looks like there’s a bunch more teams and excitement around the mayors racing, so we’re looking forward to that,” Hebblethwaite said.
Chair of the Outhouse Races and director of the Rocky Mountain Rotary Club, Chris Heier, echoed the same sentiment as his fellow Rotarian.
“This was a long time coming, especially after the first tune we’ve had these two juggernauts go up against each other in 2019, and with COVID that’s put a little break into the events that happen locally,” Heier said.
With last year’s Outhouse Races smaller than previous years, he added that this will be their first true event post-pandemic. With 20 teams ready to roll, Heier looks forward to seeing the community come out and participate in the races.
“We really wanted to give the mayors a chance to finish what they started in 2019,” Heier said. “We’re hoping to get more people’s interest in the races, not just the businesses, but maybe next year we’d love to see people put together their own teams to have fun, and we’ll see where we can take this in the future.”
