Competition History

The University of Alberta Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race Team is the oldest engineering student group project at the University of Alberta where engineering students from across Canada take on the endeavor to build a toboggan where the entire running surface is made of concrete. These sleds must hold 5 people and be complete with brakes and a steering system, while weighing in at under 350lbs. Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race, or GNCTR as it is more commonly known as, was started here at the University of Alberta in 1972 as a challenge to civil engineering students from the Alberta chapter of the American Concrete Institute.

The event was held in the winter of 1972, the event was deemed a failure by the American Concrete Institute and was cancelled. This was far from the end of GNCTR as the spirit of competition lived on in the competitors of the initial race. The students banded together and in 1975 at Canyon Ski Hill in Red Deer, Alberta. The University of Alberta, University of Calgary, Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, and Northern Alberta Institute of Technology were all invited to compete in a new re-birth of GNCTR where SAIT took home the championship recording a speed of 50km/hr.

To this day, GNCTR is completely volunteer run and student led. While we have corporate and industrial sponsors, the whole event is put forth by the dedication and perseverance of the organizing committee. While the rules have changed from year to year, the spirit of the competition has never been more alive with over 500 students competing

.