Tremblay Claims Entertaining ISOC Canterbury Snocross

In one of the most entertaining final races in years, Quebec’s Tim Tremblay overcame a dogfight with three other top competitors to win Friday night’s Pro Open final at the Traxxis-sponsored Canterbury National in Shakopee, Minnesota.

.       Before that, however, Tremblay’s main fight this week was with customs agents that almost prevented his appearance at the race – more on that later.

.       On an unseasonably warm and windy night, 15 top pros worked their way into the final after two rounds of heat, followed by a last chance qualifier for some competitors.

.      The top qualifier was Wisconsin-based Polaris racer Ross Martin, and the season points leader showed his strength right away after the green flag waved, jumping out to an early lead while many sleds traded paint behind him.

.       After an initial shuffle, Amsoil Schuering Speed Sports teammates Robbie Malinoski and Darren Mees slotted in at second and third, with Cat racers Dan Ebert and Tucker Hibbert fourth and fifth. Then came Mathieu Morin, Tremblay, Garth Kaufman, recent jump record setter Levi LaVallee and Mike Bauer.

.       Four laps into the race, Malinoski started pressuring Martin. The two traded paint a couple of times, with Malinoski running into the back of Martin on one lap, then Martin forcing Malinoski over the burm in the same turn four a lap later. The two ran probably 8 laps never more than 8 sled-lengths apart.

[Read more]

Hibbert Scores Season-Opening Stock Victory

It didn’t look good for the king of snocross racing at the season-opening ISOC Amsoil Duluth National. Through heat races, mega superstar Tucker Hibbert didn’t sniff the lead, getting beat in round one by Bobby LePage and then finishing behind both Ross Martin and Tim Tremblay in the second round.

            Then, in the final on a temperate night at the host Spirit Mountain Ski Resort just south of Duluth, Minnesota, Hibbert reacted slow at the starting line and started the race in the middle of the pack. Up at the front? It was TJ Gulla, Martin and Tremblay.

Tucker Hibbert celebrates his Pro Stock final victory at Duluth

          But with money on the line, Hibbert methodically picked his way through traffic on his Arctic Cat, searched for winning lines and took home another victory before a cheering crowd.

            The highest qualifier after the heat races was Brett Turcotte on his No. 16 Boss Racing Ski-Doo. The driver from British Columbia got the all important line choice for the crowded start, but it didn’t work out to his favor. He got caught in a washout and ended up toward the back of the pack.

            Instead, it was the Vermont-native Gulla charging into the lead on his Hentges Racing Polaris. Insiders in the infield and some up on the pit wall were openly cheering – it was one year ago at this very event where Gulla suffered a season-ending and career-threatening injury. Seeing him back on the track was inspirational enough – seeing him in the lead was awe-inspiring.

Another podium shot, another big win by Cody Thomsen

[Read more]

Tim Tremblay Ends Hibbert’s Run Of Perfection

Tucker Hibbert’s run of perfection is over, and the person who broke the string is somebody that hardly anybody would have picked a couple weeks ago.

     First-year pro Tim Tremblay, running a Warnert Racing, NSK-sponsored Ski-Doo, led pretty much from green to checkered Saturday night in Sandy, Utah, running away with the Pro Open final.

     The victory followed Tremblay’s second-place finish in Pro Stock moments ago, proving that his victory was no fluke. Some doubters may note that Hibbert crashed with eight laps left in the race, but Hibbert was not a factor in this final – he was running third at the time, roughly five seconds behind Tremblay, and three seconds behind Ross Martin, who held second place until the end.

     A sizable crowd was on hand in the Salt Lake City suburb, making host organization ISOC very happy they took the risk to venture west.

     After the race, the Quebecois winner searched for words to describe how good it all felt.

     “I’m living a dream right now, I can’t believe it — To get first place in the pros, I can’t believe it,” Tremblay said. “I felt like Ross Martin was behind me, but I just didn’t look back and I had great lines, and I tried to put everything (together) to go fast, and it just worked good.”

     Martin finished a solid second and solidified himself in the points, while fellow Polaris racer Robbie Malinoski recovered from some qualifying-race crashes that left him banged up and starting in the back row to finish third.

     “It was one of those deal where I found a little hole off the starting line and was able to get through it,” Malinoski said. “Then I just put my head down and continued to work hard. I’m super pumped. We were kind of down in the dumps earlier today after we had a couple of crashes in the qualifiers, this is exactly what we needed.”

     Cory Davis finished fourth, followed by fellow Cat racers Garth Kaufman, Dan Ebert and Hibbert, who remounted and climbed his way back up to seventh.

     Make sure to check out our story on the Pro Stock final elsewhere on this web site.

Big Excitement In Utah National

People in the pits talk about what it’s going to take to stop the T-Train, the nickname for snocross stud Tucker Hibbert.

      He went undefeated last year, and this year he opened the second by sweeping both pro classes at Duluth, Minnesota, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

      Well in Utah for round three, that train turned into a self described “monster truck” but kept on a roll in Pro Stock.

      Hibbert was the No. 1 qualifier and jumped out to a holeshot and immediately started pulling away from the field on his Monster Energy Drink-sponsored Arctic Cat.

      Behind him, two first-year pros battled it out for second place, as Minnesota Cat rider Dan Ebert and Quebec-native Tim Tremblay on a Ski-Doo swapped the second spot. Ebert was second off the line, but Tremblay took the spot by the end of the first lap. Ebert grabbed the spot back about four laps later and held the runner up spot until about lap 6, when the two traded paint and Tremblay returned to second.

      Behind them, Zach Pattyn, Ross Martin and Levi Lavallee slotted into the next three spots and stayed close to each other throughout the event.

      About eight laps into the 22-lap final, however, Matt Judnick and Ryan Simons got tangled up in turn in particularly loose snow, and they and corner workers couldn’t separate the two machines. That created a race-long obstacle for competitors, and it just about ended Hibbert run of perfection.

      Shortly before Hibbert entered the turn with about 9 laps to go, a third sled got tangled in the mess, and Hibbert came hot into the turn with nowhere to go.

      “It was pretty wild man,” Hibbert explained after the race. “Some sleds were stuck there the whole time, and I came around one lap and there was a third sled there and I didn’t know what to do, I just drove right into them….I thought I was done for sure, I said it to myself in my helmet.”

      But then Hibbert went “monster truck” on the whole event, clawing his way over Judnick’s sled to get out of the mess. He lost a couple seconds off of his 5-second lead, but he escaped.  

      “I think I owe those guy some new parts, because I wrecked their sleds there when I went over them,” Hibbert said with a chuckle.

      He expanded his lead back to 4.188 seconds by the time he went by the waving checkered flag with his 51rst Pro victory. Everybody behind him stayed in line, meaning Tremblay (Doo) was second, Ebert (Cat) third, and then Pattyn (Cat), Martin (Pol) and LaVallee (Pol). Kaufman (Cat) held seventh, with Steve Taylor (Doo), Robbie Malinoski (Pol) and Andrew Johnstad (Pol) rounding out the top 10.

      Tremblay unleashed a fist pump when he crossed the finish line in second. “Second place for my first year as a pro, that’s a pretty good finish, I think,” the French-Canadian racer said afterward.

      Ebert seemed to appreciate his spot on the podium, and his battle with Tremblay.

      “We had a little contact there but it was good, it was a lot of fun racing there,” Ebert said.

      The Pro Open final is just about an hour away – check back for details.

Hibbert Completes Pro Sweep In Duluth

The T-Train kept rolling Sunday at Spirit Mountain in Duluth, Minnesota, as Tucker Hibbert rolled over the competition in the Pro Open final.

Hibbert, 25, was unbeaten last year in ISOC racing action, and he started this season with the same dominating style, winning every time his Arctic Cat sleds took to the track. He now has 48 wins as a Pro on the national circuit.

Originally slated for the traditional Thanksgiving weekend but postponed due to unseasonably warm weather, weather today on the shores of Lake Superior was cold, making the racetrack hard and fast with thick snowdust that challenged the racers.

The early lead in the 22-lap Pro Open final was claimed by Robbie Malinoski, riding his first weekend as part of the Amsoil Schuering Speed Sports team in the Amsoil sponsored Pro Open class at the Amsoil Duluth National on the Amsoil Championship Snocross Series across the harbor from Amsoil’s headquarters in Superior, Wisconsin.

Pressure? Maybe, but the real pressure was being mounted by Hibbert. Within a couple of laps Hibbert moved into the lead and never looked back. He ended up winning the final by eight seconds, but it was never close, as he built a full straight-away lead within the first eight laps and then held it through lapped traffic.

[Read more]