10 Best Things About Haydays — Sept. 11-12

The 44^th annual Haydays grass drag, swap meet and snowmobiling party is a less than a week away, and with its new location it’s bound to be interesting. Here is my unofficial, quickly thrown together and hardly thought about Top 10 Things About Haydays.

1. The Swap Meet – This is where you can find the windshield you’ve been seeking for your primary sled, the seat for your older sled and the clutch for your vintage sled. Plus, you can sort through the mess of clapped out dirt bikes, occasional kitchen appliances, old neon beer signs, off-brand used power tools, tires & rims, artificial Christmas trees and weed whips, among other things. Remember to bring your best haggling skills.
2. The Grass Drags – Call me old fashioned, but Haydays started as a grass drag, and I still truly enjoy seeing the boys (and occasional girls) settle the score for who can build and race the fastest equipment on dirt. It’s called a grass drag, but it sounds like the entire course this year will be on a clay surface. Either way, expect 500 feet of racing, lightning fast equipment, the smell of race gas and turbo-charged egos.
3. 

   Buy something...please....

   Vendor Displays – Whether you want to check out the new sleds, talk to the guys who make traction products, leer at the pretty girls tossing out Ski-Doo T-shirts, shop for a new jacket or helmet, dream about the hot aftermarket performance setup for your sled or subscribe to the best damned snowmobile magazine in the sport (and I’m not talking about Snowmobile, Race Gas, Snow Action, City Sledder, Snow Week, Sno-X, SX illustrated, Snow Trader, Hot Sled, SnoTrack, Invitation to Snowmobiling, or Race & Rally – they’re all dead!), there’s a lot to see at Haydays.

4. The Weather – Yeah, we all love winter, but it is kind of cool going to a snowmobiling event in shorts and a t-shirt, and better yet, seeing all of the gals at the event in shorts and T-shirts or bikini tops — helllllloooo ladies!  
5. The Motorsports Freestyle Shows – The high-flying freestyle show featuring sleds, bikes, quads and the occasional off-road truck has become a staple at Haydays over the last 10 years. See young men with more guts than sense fly launch off of ramps and do oddly-named and dangerous aerial maneuvers while obnoxious music blares through staticy speakers.
6. Seeing Vintage Sleds – Haydays has a formal vintage sled area called Memory Lane where you can restored beauties, and the swap meet with packed with unrestored relics. Either way, Haydays is a great place to celebrate this sport’s great history.  
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Haydays Is Coming Soon, At A New Location

Tick…tick… tick… You hear that? Tick…tick…tick… that’s the sounds of time melting away… tick…tick…tick… The only problem is, that’s not seconds, or even minutes… tick…tick…tick… it’s the sounds of entire DAYS disappearing, pulling us through summer and toward fall.

            I remember when I was young(er), my parents would talk all the time about how fast time was going. “Geez, it just seemed like it was yesterday and it was Labor Day, and now it’s getting close to Christmas already!” For me and most kids, the time between those two holidays seemed like an eternity, filled with way too many days at school and not nearly enough days outside screwing around.

            Now that I’m old(er), I’m the guy thinking time is going WAY to fast. It’s July already, for cripes sake – where is my summer going?!

            Summer passing rapidly means we’re getting closer and closer to snowmobiling’s best-attended event – the Haydays Grass Drags and Swap Meet here in Minnesota. Over the last 17 years – and especially when we still had Snow Week magazine – I had people regularly call the office or strike up a conversation when I was at other snowmobiling events to tell me that their local event or one they were helping to promote was either “bigger than Haydays” or that it will be bigger than Haydays within the next couple of years. [Read more]