Meet Zoomer, The World’s Fastest Snail [Video]

You learn something new everyday.

We bet you, like us, had no idea there was a World Snail Racing Championship. And we’ll go even further in guessing that you had no idea that the world champ happens to be Zoomer, a snail who is trained by 6-year-old boy named Anton Lucas.

Wait, what?

Details:

The rules are simple. Each competitor brings their own snails. Each is marked with a number – for, as the organisers admit, “One garden snail looks very much like another.”

The racing track is marked with two concentric circles. Snails are placed along the inner circle, and the winner is the first to reach the outer circle. The distance is 13 inches if a snail travels in a straight line. Some do, some don’t. The course record is two minutes, set a decade ago by a snail called Archie.

Seems simple enough. And… fun? So get out there kids and start racing your snails. There’s no word on if there’s a $$$ prize for winning the championship, but when you consider that a lot of the “trainers” are under six years old, you should probably be able to win a title. Or else you’re no better than a 6-year-old.

Well, here’s what it looks like.

via The Big Lead