IWA Returns to Hill City, and Wins my Heart
August 4, 2010
The first thing I learned about journalism is that it is the responsibility of the author to report on topics in an unbiased manner. In the few years that I have been reporting on snowmobile races, I have lived by that principle and for the most part, kept my opinions out of my stories. That being said it has come time that I make an exception to that rule in saying that watercross is by and far one of the most spectacular yet underrated forms of snowmobile racing. I’ve spent the entire season with the International Watercross Association but it wasn’t until the race at the Quadna Resort in Hill City, Minnesota that I completely realized how fantastic both the sport of watercross racing and its community truly is.
Maki Becomes World Champ, Times Two
July 21, 2010
2010 World Champions
When I think of the Grantsburg World Championship Watercross Race, I think of my most favorite weekend of the year, blazing hot sun, delicious lemonade and the street dances that I love so much. After this years 34th Annual World Championship Race I’ve added one more thing, or should I say person, to that list. Chad Maki.
McCurdy, Jr. Ends Bad Luck Streak in Ely, Minnesota Watercross
July 2, 2010
The International Watercross Associations race in Ely, Minnesota over the weekend of June 26, 2010 marked the end of a bad luck streak for one driver and may have started the beginning of a good one for many more.
IWA Kicks-Off 2010 Season
June 9, 2010
The International Watercross Association kicked off their 2010 race season June 6-7 in Moose Lake, MN. The Moose Lake Grand Prix debuted two new sponsors, new drivers and some of the fastest racing you’ll see on water.
Inaugural Oval Racers Alliance Event a Success
February 10, 2010
The weekend of February 5-7, 2010 marked the beginning of the Oval Racers Alliance’s first season. A total of approximately 536 entries and 120 drivers made for extremely close racing in both modern and vintage classes at the I-94 Speedway in Sauk Centre, MN.
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Wanderscheid Earns World Championship Pole In Friday Night Program
January 15, 2010
PJ Wanderscheid earned the pole position for Sunday's World Championship with a Sweet Sixteen victory Friday night.
Arctic Cat’s P.J. Wanderscheid started his pursuit to become the first four-time Eagle River World Champion in style, earning the pole position in a smooth and efficient Friday Night Thunder program at the famous Derby Track in northern Wisconsin.
Wanderscheid, age 26, led the World Snowmobile Headquarters-sponsored Sweet Sixteen Pole Position race from the opening green flag all the way to the checkered flag 16 laps later, besting a star-studded field of competitors all aiming for the World Championship title on Sunday. He was chased throughout the race by Nick VanStrydonk and Thursday’s time trial winner Matt Schulz – with Schulz undercutting VanStrydonk on the last lap to claim second. Malcolm Chartier took fourth, with three-time champ Jacques Villeneuve fifth and two-time champ Gary Moyle sixth.
Ultimately, only first place counted on Friday night – that person gets to skip Saturday’s multi-round qualifying process and transfers directly into Sunday front row pole position. Wanderscheid earned that honor in style, and put all of his competition on notice.
Eagle River Time Trials: Schulz On Top!
January 15, 2010
Matt Schulz, pictured here at Shakopee being chased by Dustin Wahl, earned the fast time in qualifying at Eagle River Thursday afternoon.
The time trials for the Eagle River World Championship have wrapped up, and the man at the top of the list isn’t an ex-champion, but rather a young racer who has been lightning fast this year.
Matt Schulz of Wausau, Wisconsin, posted a 17.813 second qualifying time, besting a field that includes three multi-time champions and putting his Wahl-chassis up front in Saturday’s qualifying heat races.
Another young racer from Wisconsin’s Northwoods took the second spot. Nick VanStrydonk of nearby Tomahawk was two-hundreths behind Schulz, posting a 17.833 on his Polaris-powered mod.
Dustin Wahl (18.148) posted the third-fast time on his Wahl/Polaris combination. He’ll try again to be the third Wahl to earn a World Championship on Sunday. Malcolm Chartier (18.198) took fourth on his Houle-built, Ski-Doo powered Champ sled.
The first ex-champion in time trials was three-time winner Jacques Villeneuve (18.203), and he was followed closely by fellow three-timer PJ Wanderschied (18.203). Both are attempting to be the first to earn four titles at Eagle River.
The rest of the top 10 were Dan Fenhaus (18.337), Nick Lagoy (18.355), two-time defending champion Bryan Bewcyk (18.391) and Jay Ryden (18.406). Last week’s winner at the USSA race in Plymouth, Spencer Graff, timed in 11th.
Of the rest of the pack of 25 who took the flag for time trials, the most notable fact was that two-time champion Gary Moyle was way back in 14th place. He’s got a funky new chassis this year, and he may not have it figured out yet. That said, Moyle has done this before – timed in at mid-pack – and came back and won on Sunday.
Maybe it’s because Moyle knows time trials mean very little here. With the Derby’s unique qualifying process, which involve a couple rounds of heat races on Saturday, time trials means very little, other than the seating in those heat races. Still, Schulz showed incredible strength in gaining the fast time, and may have opened some eyes in the pits.
Check back all weekend for updates. Things really get rolling tomorrow, with the big Friday Night Thunder program, and we’ll be there, taking photos and giving you the inside scoop. Tell your friends!
Tim Tremblay Ends Hibbert’s Run Of Perfection
January 9, 2010
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
January 9, 2010
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.
Wahl Opens Season On Top
December 20, 2009
If you are a snowmobile racing fan within an easy drive of Minnesota’s Twin Cities, shame on you for missing a fabulous event.
The WSA Pro-Ice season opener December 19-20 at Shakopee, Minnesota’s Raceway Park was a really good racing event at a really cool facility. Sadly, it was missed by most, as only a small crowd was on hand to see some very exciting racing, particularly in the Champ 440 class.
Sixteen of the very best drivers in the Upper Midwest, including World Champions PJ Wanderscheid (2002, 2003, 2006), Gary Moyle (2005, 2007) and Bryan Bewcyk (2008, 2009) battled it out on the ice-covered blacktop racing track, but in the end the winner was a second-generation driver that many are expecting to be a future World Champion.
Dustin Wahl of the Greenbush, Minnesota-based Wahl Bros. Racing Team opened the season on top, first claiming the super-exciting 600 class Saturday afternoon and then the event-closing Champ 440 final Sunday afternoon in front of a fast field.
Wanderscheid got the holeshot and held the point for the first half of the race, but standing trackside it was obvious that it was only a matter of time before the talented Cat racer gave way to the faster Polaris-powered mod being driven by Wahl. Just past the halfway point, Wahl claimed the lead by driving under Wanderscheid on the front stretch, then he pulled away. Wanderscheid finished a solid second. Moyle was mired back in traffic on his new, tubular chassis machine, and Bewcyk didn’t make the 12-sled final.
Wahl’s victory was more dramatic Saturday, when he used a last-lap pass to slice past Mike Schultz for the victory.
After the race, Dustin’s father Dave Wahl reported that the sled the team was using was actually last year’s chassis. A new chassis has been completed, but “we thought this one was fast enough,” said the retired three-time champion. We guess so.
Check back with SnowGoerRacing.com later this week – we took a ton of photos and will upload a bunch from snowmobile oval racing, ATV racing on the same surface and, yes, even lawn mower racing. Stay tuned.