Bryan Dyrdahl leads USCC Red Lake I-500
January 17, 2009
Thief River Falls, Minn.
January 17, 2009
Ski-Doo’s Bryan Dyrdahl will head out for the final day of the Red Lake I-500 tomorrow morning with a 58-second lead over Polaris driver Corey Davidson. If Dyrdahl holds on, it will be his fifth I-500 cross-country win and his third in four years.
Last year, Dyrdahl went into the last day of the 500 with a five-minute lead and won by 10 minutes. Does the narrower margin matter?
“I just need to stay on the sled and ride my own race,” Dyrdahl said. “I’ve had bad luck on the last day before. But if nothing goes wrong, I’ll be alright.”
Cat rider Brian Dick, who had the fastest time of the day, sits in third place overall and will leave the gate about 90 seconds after Davidson. Dick’s teammate D.J. Ekre will depart five seconds later followed by fifth place rider Dan Ebert, also on an Arctic Cat.
Dick said he pushed hard today and is happy with his run, but admitted it will be a tall order to pass front runners Dyrdahl and Davidson. “It’s gonna take a little bobble from them. It’s a lot of time [to make up], but I made a little bit up today,” he said. “Every little bit helps.” Davidson’s strategy is simple.
“I’m gonna put the hammer down tomorrow,” he said. “I ain’t gonna shut ‘er down.”
Day 3 will bring racers over the same course as Day 2. Conditions of the 149-mile leg faced by drivers varied, depending on when they left the starting gate. Drivers who left the line early plowed through deep, drifted snow. Polaris driver Gabe Bunke, who was first off the line said his run was slow and windy. “Visibility was terrible. It was like driving in snowdust,” he said. “Not a fun day.”
Other trouble for Bunke today included a poor-running sled. “The motor sucks. The clutching sucks. There’s no power. No mid-range,” the normally upbeat veteran said. To compound the problem, his Dragon SP ran out of gas just a few miles from a fuel stop, which added about 30 minutes to his time, he said. He’s in 21st place on the Pro 600 class.
The course was fast for Dick, who was the 21st sled to leave the gate today. “Some parts were technical, but there was a lot of high-speed stuff,” he said. “A lot of the ditches were wide-open running.”
Racing starts tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. CST. Check back to SnowGoerRacing.com tomorrow afternoon for results and a final report.
USCC Red Lake I-500 official 2-day standings
Pro 600: 1. Bryan Dyrdahl (Doo); 2. Corey Davidson (Pol); 3. Brian Dick (Cat); 4. D.J. Ekre (Cat); 5. Dan Ebert (Cat); 6. Ryan Huston (Cat); 7. Chad Lian (Cat); 8. Nathan Potucek (Cat); 9. Brandon Gerszewski (Cat); 10. Eric Gausen.
Bryan Dyrdahl Preps For The Red Lake I-500
January 15, 2009
Bryan Dyrdahl checks the rate of a suspension spring as part of his preparation for this weekend's I-500.
The I-500 is a legendary cross-country race that’s been run by thousands of snowmobile racers since the inaugural Winnipeg-to-St. Paul in 1966. For some people, their goal is just to finish, but for Ski-Doo racer Bryan Dyrdahl, his goal is only to win. Racing for anything less than first place isn’t worth his time, he says.
To win the 500 requires not only a ton of rider skill and lots of luck; it also takes a well-prepared race sled. Dyrdahl has won the race four times, and this weekend he’ll be running a fine-tuned MX Zx 600 RS.
We recently caught up with Dyrdahl at his home in Bagley, Minnesota, to find out what goes in to setting up the machine that he’ll ride in this weekend’s United States Cross-Country (USCC) Red Lake I-500.
Full-Time Job
Dyrdahl works construction in the summer. But when winter rolls into northern Minnesota, his real job is put on hold until the spring thaw, so snowmobile racing becomes his temporary full-time job.
He’s already won the I-500 more times than anyone (Jack Struthers and Corey Davidson each have won the race three times), but he hopes to move further into elite status with a win this weekend.
Dyrdahl hopes this sled will carry him to his fifth I-500 victory.
Set-up for this weekend’s I-500 will take two weeks, working eight to 10 hours each day. Racers used to spend hours gusseting and welding their sleds to get them ready for the I-500. But modern sleds like Dyrdahl’s No. 55 don’t require extra reinforcements in order to survive 500 hard miles of ditches, rivers and rough trails.
Dyrdahl says his Ski-Doos have been tough and dependable. Other than stuff for which he takes the blame, Dyrdahl hasn’t wrecked anything in more than five years racing yellow, he said. Stronger, tougher sleds allow him to spend more time tuning and dialing-in to make the machine ride better and go faster.