So, what happened to the big beer bottle?
ON TRACK
There are many types of Victory Lane celebrations in motorsport. The most famous is the victor drinking something when standing on the podium in post-race merriment.
For the winner of the Indianapolis 500, it’s milk. In Formula 1, it’s champagne. But when a brewery sponsors a race, you can be sure the winner will be quaffing some beer.
In the early 1980s at the height of the Molson Brewery involvement at Cayuga Speedway (now Jukasa Motor Speedway), Molson had a specially-crafted beer bottle built for post-race ceremonies at its Molson ASA (American Speed Association) races at the track.
This large bottle held 14 pints (160 ounces, 4.54 litres) of the company’s product, and its contents were consumed by the race winner in place of the usual champagne. Some of the winners who held this bottle to their lips included Alan Kulwicki, Bob Senneker, and Dick Trickle, all Molson 200 and Molson 300 race winners during this time.
Once Kulwicki drank from the bottle after winning the 1984 Molson 200, the $1,600 handcrafted glass vessel disappeared, but Molson officials were able to track it down for the August running of the Molson 300 that year, which was won by Jim Sauter of Wisconsin.
What happened to the bottle after Sauter’s victory in the Molson Canadian 300 is a mystery. This unique piece of Canadian racing tradition is probably sitting in a man-cave somewhere.
Tradition is strong at the Indy Brickyard, and the drinking of milk by the victor started in 1933 with Louis Meyer, and again in 1936 when local milk producers saw a great marketing opportunity.
But most winners of the 500 resisted milk until 1956 when the American Dairy Foundation put up $400 for its product to be seen in the winner’s circle.
Victory Lane photos for the next 10 years showed a dirty, grease-and-rubber-splattered face downing fresh white milk. Now, the winning driver gets $10,000 from the dairy folks.
Not every victor has tasted the white beverage. In 1993, Emerson Fittipaldi won the race, and he elected to drink orange juice.
In today’s Indy 500 races, all drivers are given a choice of one per cent, two per cent, etc. if they win the race, but not chocolate milk.
While the great Juan Manuel Fangio was given a bottle of champagne after his 1950 French GP win in the wine area of Reims, the drinking and spraying of the bubbly was not adopted on the Formula 1 podium until the late 1960s. And it didn’t start with F1 racing.
After his win of Le Mans in 1966, Jo Siffert accidentally sprayed the crowd with warm Moet. This incident caught on, and since that time one of the most iconic sights in motorsport is the top-three winners of each GP drinking and spraying the onlookers with champagne.
Winners of today’s F1 races sip and spray a 2009 Blanc de Blanc Grand Cru Millesime Chardonnay in a Champagne Carbon bottle. The three bottles at each race are handcrafted of carbon fibre, the same material used in building the bodies of the high-tech race cars. There is a gold-accented bottle for the winner, silver for second, and bronze for third. Each bottle costs about $3,000 to produce. BITS FROM THE PITS: Season tickets and pit passes are now available at Merrittville Speedway. The track is also holding an open house this Saturday from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at its Thorold office on the Merrittville Highway . ... Ohsweken Speedway will hold its annual rules and regulations meeting Dec. 17 from noon until 5 p.m. at the Iroquois Lacrosse Arena on Second Line in Hagersville . ... NASCAR and Whelen Engineering recently announced an extension of their partnership through to 2024 for the Whelen Modified Series and Whelen Euro Series. No word yet on the continuation of the Whelen All American Series, which is sponsored by the Connecticut engineering firm and is sanctioned by NASCAR in five divisions throughout North America, including four Canadian provinces.
Tim Miller is the author of several books on auto racing and can be reached at timmillerthecarguy@gmail.com.