SELMA, Ala. (AP) - An old Selma tradition is returning to the Alabama River for Labor Day.
Organizers for the Alabama River Raft Race got approval from the state marine patrol Thursday, making its return official.
“I felt a combination of relieved and thrilled,” said Victor Shaw, who is helping revive the race.
“We had pretty much been indicated that it was a good application and that it was likely to be approved, so without them coming back with any stipulations or anything they’d like us to change with the way we were handling the safety, I was kind of surprised.”
Shaw is a member of the Black Belt Benefit Group and Grow Selma, which is overseeing the race as part of its Labor Day Riverfront Park Music and Arts Festival.
“I contacted everybody in the Black Belt Benefit Group, and they were all happy we got this taken care of with the first pass,” Shaw said. “We’re very happy we managed to get a definite green light early enough so that people still have five or six weeks to build something.”
The race, which started in the 1970s, came to a halt in the early 1980s after the race got too large.
“This is something that should never have stopped; however, it got out of control, and they decided it was too big and too uncontrollable,” Shaw said. “We need to bring it back to where it’s family oriented and probably half as big as it used to be and not as long.”
Shaw said the race was approved for 24 entries for each of the two categories - homemade watercrafts and manufactured watercrafts like canoes and kayaks.
The race, which used to stretch from the Edmund Pettus Bridge to Little Miami, will also be a little shorter than it used to be. The renewed tradition will start on private land near the trestle bridge and end at the Selma City Marina, which is about a 2-mile float.
While some teams that plan on entering the race have waited for final approval to start building, Shaw said others have already started.
“I know of three groups that are building rafts already, and if I haven’t heard about it, there are 21 spaces left,” Shaw laughed.
“There were a lot of people back in the day that built stuff that was very ‘Rube Goldberg.’ Hopefully we see some creativity,” Shaw said. “Pointless complexity is kind of what I’d like to see. It is more about river and less about race.”
Manufactured entries have a minimum of one passenger and a maximum of three, while homemade entries have a two-person minimum and an eight-person maximum. The entry fee is $10 a person, and Shaw said rules are posted on the event’s Facebook page, Alabama River Raft Race.
“Everybody wants to walk over the bridge. It is about time some of us went under the bridge,” Shaw said. “This isn’t a fundraiser, this is supposed to be a ‘fun-raiser.’ It is to try and get the feel back of the goofiness that it was back then.”
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Information from: Times Journal, https://www.selmatimesjournal.com/
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