Will New Swedish Sensation Remind Of The Flying Finn?

Quick: Name your favorite Scandinavian snocross star!

            When most North American snowmobile race fans think of racers from Scandinavia, the first name that pops into their head is Toni Haikonen. The “Flying Finn” came stateside in the mid 1990s and changed our sport with his high-flying, dynamic style that made him a joy to watch on the track.

            What’s even more amazing, looking back at the pictures now, is that Toni made his big impact racing on an F-chassis Ski-Doo. They seemed mildly OK back then (though certainly not as nimble as the Polaris and Arctic Cat race sleds at the time), but go back and look at a photo of one of those behemoths now – would you want to air one of those beasts out?

            Following Toni, we had several snowmobile racers come from across the pond and win a national snocross race here or there. Per Berggren proved he could come up big on occasion, and Tomi Ahmasalo was consistent and stronger than an entire team of oxen. Contributor Lynn Keillor reminded me this morning of Chris Hugo Vangen, a Norwegian racer who came over here for a race, made a splash but then was booted out of the country because his paperwork wasn’t complete to allow him to stay here and make money.

            The last couple of years, we’ve seen a new wave of imports. In fact, last year Christian Salemark and Emil Ohman became the first Swedes to compete at the Winter X Games in snocross since Berggren and Jonas Perrson ran in 1999.

            Well now you’ve got another name to learn: Johan Lidman.

            Earlier this week, Team Sportech Racing announced that the 19-year-old Swede will be racing in the Pro classes this year aboard an Arctic Cat and racing out of their trailer. The full press release is below.

    [Read more]

Is Hibbert’s Excellence Good For Snocross?

When you’re watching competition in person or on TV, which would you rather see: Excellence in action, or an event where anybody could win?

     I could take either side of that argument, so that’s why I’m asking you. Some of you are   probably already seeing through my opening lines to the real question: Is Tucker Hibbert’s domination good for snowmobile racing?

Tucker Hibbert at the Duluth Snocross

     In the 2008-09 racing season, Hibbert won every single final he entered. He carried that run over into the 2009-2010 season, where he was beat only once on the track – when he had some troubles in Utah and had to watch Tim Tremblay be the first one to see the waving checkered flag in Pro Open. In each of those seasons, Hibbert raced for half the season, claimed an easy looking gold medal at the Winter X Games and then checked out of snowmobile racing to pursue his motocross racing dreams.

     Watching Hibbert race is like seeing a great artist work – in high speed. The way he selects lines in the rugged snocross courses, the smooth efficiency with which he slices through traffic on his Monster Energy-sponsored Arctic Cat, the amazingly soft way he lands his sled after catching big air – it’s almost poetic the way he dances with his snowmobile.

     Each lap, he pulls another two seconds away from his very talented competition, building a seemingly insurmountable lead by mid-race. The only hope for the competition seems to be waiting for a mistake, but they very rarely come.

     It really is awe-inspiring, and to some, it’s like watching the way Michael Jordon impacted the NBA in the 1980s, Jeremy McGrath took over motocross in the 1990s, or Tiger Woods’ impact on golf in the 2000s.

     To others, however, it lends a level of predictability that may keep them away from races. I’ve heard it from a few of my friends – I’ve asked “Are you going to the Canterbury Snocross this weekend?” and heard, “Why? To see Tucker run away from everybody again? No thanks” in reply.

The Pro Stock podium was all Arctic Cat, with Tucker Hibbert at the center, his young friend Dan Ebert on his right and counsin Garth Kaufman on his left.

  [Read more]

Ski-Doo unveils new 2011 race sled

In a surprise announcement, Ski-Doo today released details on its 2011 race sled — a full five months earlier than normal. We’ll let you know more as we learn more, but for now, here’s the press release:

Valcourt, Quebec: April 15, 2010 – BRP is introducing the 2011 Ski-Doo MXZx 600RS earlier than past years to make it clear the machine has significant changes to benefit its racers. The two biggest changes are the addition of more horsepower to the engine and a completely new rear suspension.

Despite the success seen on the 2010 race sled – like Tim Tremblay taking the ISOC Pro Stock National Sno-Cross series title, Lee Butler winning Pro Stock in CSRA, plus multiple wins and championships in Semi-Pro and Sport classes across all venues – the Engineering team in Valcourt has stepped up with big time improvements for 2011. “In racing you never stop developing your product, and because winning is part of our heritage at BRP, you can expect that we would continue to improve the MXZ race sled to be much better than last year” stated Denis Morin Vice President of Engineering for BRP. “The changes will provide better starts and more speed along with a very controlled ride tailored specifically for race conditions.”

The MXZx 600RS engine will come with new cylinders and a new combustion chamber shape to significantly improve power at all RPM’s. Racers will see better acceleration, stronger mid range response and more top end power as a result of these changes – which leads directly to better holeshots and better pull out of the turns. The clutch calibration has changed substantially to make sure the extra power is delivered to the track, along with quick back shifting and instant throttle response.

The rear suspension is completely new this year – dubbed PCX – this new skid frame is intended for race use only. The PCX features a stronger re-designed coupling system, new shock motion ratio geometry and the built in durability a racer demands. In addition to taking the big hits of jumps and bumps, the PCX will deliver better cornering and better holeshots by controlling the chassis pitch more thoroughly throughout the travel, along with improving the sled’s cross country capability.

[Read more]

Xtreme Mountain Racing Visits the Wyman Winter Festival

Selby!

Craig, Colorado – XMR put on a great Show at the Wyman Winter Festival in Craig, Colorado this past weekend. With over 3,400 spectators in attendance the festivities were fun for everyone. From snocross, to drags, the vintage show, the snodeo, fireworks and finals under the lights there was no shortage of winter snowmobiling fun. XMR hauled snow for almost two weeks and built a great track full of bumps that changed a lot throughout the race day with lots of sled traffic. XMR packed two days of racing into one full day and it wasn’t until he sun went down and the lights lit up that the finals took place.

Sport Stock Start

In the Pro/Semi Pro finals Wes Selby took the stock and mod honors over Willie Elam who had been winning the qualifiers most of the day. They put on a great show in the main, and rightfully so, with a $3,000 purse on the lines. It was the same in the sport class where Tyler Dyess had been winning the qualifiers, with Jason Fox Close behind, but Fox was hungry for the win in the main and took both the Sport I and Sport II wins for the day. [Read more]

Xtreme Mountain Racing Lights Up Afton, WY

Afton, Wyoming – XMR traveled farther north that it ever has to put on race three of the eight race season. This new location, just south of Jackson invited MWR riders to come mix it up with XMR, and with Coeur d’Alene canceled, many turned out for the fun – from local Pro/semi-pro Willie Elam to 120 rider Brody Hasenack. The horseshoe shaped track at the Afton fairgrounds proved challenging for all and went from fast and smooth on Saturday morning to a total bump-fest on Sunday.

Elam took the holeshot and the honors in both the Semi-Pro/Pro Stock and Open classes followed by Logan Halford and Zach Acord. Taylor Dyess was looking good in the Sport Class as was Jason Fox. Wesley Chapman kept up a strong presence in the junior classes again and is looking good in season points. In the women’s class Erica Potter came out and tried her hand, but didn’t have much luck, and after Michelle Stoffle came off her sled Darla Murphy took the win in the main. AJ Stoffle kept up his winning streak in Junior 10-13, and it was Cody Docheff in the 7-10 class. In the 120’s Jake Gill took the stock win and Peyton Hogan took the Champ win. In the super Sunday Korttney Potter got the win she had been looking for this early season.

Remember it is still early season, and XMR still has 5 more race events planned – the snow is looking good, and it will be back to back for the next five weekends! XMR will be back to Colorado February 13-14^th for the Wyman Winter Carnival in Craig, CO with Snocross, Drag races, Vintage Snodeo and more! More information on XMR and full race results and point standings can be found on the XMR website at www.xmrracing.com. Big thanks to the town of Afton who helped make this race happen both hosting and hauling snow – see everyone next week!

Hibbert Takes Gold at Winter X Games

Hibbert walks away with gold.

Ten years ago, then semi-pro racer Tucker Hibbert, 16 at the time, shocked the snowmobile racing world by beating a star-studded field in his first pro race at the Winter X Games in Vermont, claiming a gold medal in the made-for-TV event.

Sunday, the racer from Goodridge, Minnesota, reiterated that, as an adult, he’s the most dominant racer in the sport. He absolutely destroyed the competition, winning by more than 48 seconds in the 20-lap final. In doing so, he earned his fifth X Games gold medal in snocross, including the last four in a row, and his ninth X Games medal overall.

Heat 1 of qualifying had Ryan Simons taking the holeshot and he was followed by Cory Davis and Dan Ebert. Davis quickly passed Simons to move on to win Heat 1. The top 5 racers to move on to the final from this heat were: 1. Cory Davis 2. Ryan Simons 3. Tim Trembly 4. Dan Ebert 5. Levi Lavallee.

In Heat 2 of qualifying, Tucker Hibbert took the holeshot and never looked back. By lap 7, Hibbert had a twelve second lead on the field. On lap 19, Bobby Lepage used the 18-foot Talladega turn to pass Colby Crapo for the final transfer spot. The top 5 to advance in Heat 2 were 1. Tucker Hibbert 2. Brett Turcotte 3. Paul Bauerly 4. Matt Piche 5. Bobby LePage.

[Read more]

Heath Frisby Wins X Games Gold

Longtime freestyle stalwart Heath Frisby of Bellevue, Idaho, broke through Friday night with an incredible Tsunami Back Flip to earn the ESPN Winter X Game gold medal in the Next Trick competition.

Frisby, 25, has been an innovator in the sport, developing tricks and generally being a leader in freestyle circles. But he’s never had a very good X Games showing, settling for bronze medals that last three years in a row.

On Friday night, in front of a huge crowd at X Games 14, the competition started out with a huge trick referred to as a heart attack back flip by Sweden’s Daniel Bodin in round one, earning a 89.33 score from the judges. The other eight competitors all took their best shots in round one, but when it was over Bodin held the lead with one round left.

One highlights of the first round was an attempt by the incomparable Paul Thacker at a no hand back, using a remote control to handle throttle duties on his snowmobile. It didn’t turn out great – he did a woodpecker on the dash while in the air, then landed very hard and snapped his head and neck backwards. It looked like mega-whiplash, but he rode away.

[Read more]

Hibbert Reasserts Himself At Canterbury

Lessons in survival: Don’t get between a momma bear and her cubs; don’t tug on Superman’s cap; don’t try to take food away from Warren Sapp; and don’t antagonize Tucker Hibbert.

            The Arctic Cat racer known as T Train steamrolled the competition Saturday night in rainy conditions at Shakopee, Minnesota’s Canterbury Park, grabbing an early holeshot and winning in truly dominating fashion – crossing the finish line 32 seconds ahead of second-place Dan Ebert to claim his 51^st victory in national snocross racing.

            Hibbert suffered his only defeat of the past season-and-a-half a couple of weeks ago at the ISOC national near Salt Lake City, Utah. He entered this weekend ultra-determined, and it showed. He entered the final as the number one qualifier, and made a mockery of his competition in the final.  

            Off the starting line, the co-holeshots went to Polaris’ Brett Bender, who rocketed through the first turn on the outside, and Hibbert, who used a more central line. While Bender got caught up in some loose snow, Hibbert got traction and rocketed into the next set of turns. In the pack, Ebert traded paint with some other competitors and emerged in third.

            It took another lap for Ebert to move past Bender, but his efforts to chase down his mentor proved very much in vain. Lap after lap, Hibbert gained one or two seconds over the rest of the field, leaving everybody far, far behind. Four laps into the 20-lap final, Hibbert’s lead was 4 seconds. Four laps later, the lead was 8.5 seconds. Four laps after that, the lead was 13.8 seconds – and growing.

            While other racers tired, Hibbert got faster, slicing through lapped traffic with ease. Four laps later? The lead was now 22.3 seconds – and still growing. Ebert, the winning of the cross-country Red Lake I-500 one week earlier on his No. 60 Arctic Cat, ran a very solid race, and outran a very talented field to claim second, but he was no match for Hibbert.

            Bender similarly held third through most of the race and earned podium exposure with a third-place finish. Polaris racer Levi Lavallee held fourth through most of the race but couldn’t hold off a late challenge by Ski-Doo’s Tim Trembley, the winner at Utah who claimed fourth with two laps left and held the spot to the finish. Lavallee ended up fifth.

            The rest of the top 10 were Ross Martin (Pol), Emil Ohman (Doo), Corey Davis (Cat), Robbie Malinoski (Pol) and Matt Judnick (Pol).

            The Pro Open final will be run Saturday at Canterbury.

            In Semi-Pro Stock racing Saturday night, Logan Christian of Fertile, Minnesota, took the victory on his Arctic Cat. Combined with his second in this class at Duluth, third at Milwaukee and foruth in Utah, Christian is setting himself up well in the points race in this class. Justin Broberg finished second, followed by Dylan Martin and Matt Pichner.

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.

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