By Kaisja Clark

With the upcoming release of a brand new all women’s snowmobile video featuring members of the Snow Hunnys riding team, Blake Koch, the owner and founder of Snow Hunnys is out to set the record straight.

Koch was just a senior in high school when he and his girlfriend hatched the idea to start up a new company and clothing line geared toward women in the snowmobiling community. Initially, he thought it would be a great way to market a group that is typically ignored in the snowmobiling community.

The first round of marketing based on sex appeal—a sort of Playboy bunny for snowmobilers—drew an immediate, negative response from the snowmobiling community. The biggest critics were just the people Koch said he was trying to reach—women.

“When we started,” Koch said, “We were all about the cutsie girls taking pictures for the guys. Ever since, we have been battling that image and working very hard to change people’s perception. We lost respect from key people and they tuned us out.” He said he feels as though his company sparked the use of sex appeal in the industry with their sexy, risqué concepts and said you can now find “vendors with girls in fishnets trying to sell stuff at the snow shows,” but said his company has moved on. Now at a more mature 22-years-old, Koch said the company is looking to showcase the talent of female riders and the new line of attack seems to be paying off.

“We knew we were in the wrong,” he said. “Slowly people are starting to believe that we are turning it around to go in a new direction. They can see that we are about the women riders and we want to promote them.”

If promoting female snowmobiling were easy, the statistics wouldn’t be what they are. Just 12 percent of active snowmobilers are women, compared to the 88 percent men.  Yes, there are all-female riding groups. The Pink Ribbon Riders are an example of how the female snowmobiling community can come together and achieve great things, in their case, national fundraising rides for men and women with cancer. But, those kinds of groups are sparse because as Koch pointed out, the snowmobiling industry has largely ignored women riders. And he’s right.

Although there have been a handful of women riders featured in snowmobile videos over the last decade, there isn’t a woman who is as well-known as Chris Burandt. Yes, there are a few breakout female riders who are starting to garner attention with their riding expertise, but the snowmobiling industry still caters to the male crowd. Most industry films are created by guys, for guys, starring guys. If a woman does happen to make a rare appearance in a snow film, she’s usually onscreen for 30 seconds in a bikini and fluffy snow boots, which doesn’t speak much to her ability to boondock on an RMK through the trees.

But the tide may be turning. Koch hopes to create a family friendly atmosphere by giving men’s wives, girlfriends or daughters who ride snowmobiles a greater venue to participate in. Plus, he’s promoting the team with a website, clothing line (now “tastefully” photographed) a You Tube channel, appearances at North American snow shows, and the pièce de résistance, a new Snow Hunnys film by Premonition Films, due to be released in the fall of 2010. It is one of the first, if not the first, all women’s snowmobiling video. There are also more competitions on the way, and an ultimate goal of having team Snow Hunnys being sponsored athletes who compete in the Winter X Games within the next few years.

“I think it will define the sport and get a lot more women involved in the sport,” he said. “Every season we need to come out bigger and better. We want intelligent girls pushing the limits until we get to a point where female snowmobiling will get so huge that the name will stand on its own.”

What Koch sees as a fundamental defining moment of change in the snowmobiling world, the Snow Hunny riders themselves just want to prove themselves as female snowmobiling athletes. Delene Dipple, the star of the team, is incredibly passionate about the sport and about getting respect for female snowmobilers.

Rider Nadia Samer, from Whistler, BC, Canada, has several downhill titles in mountain skiing and just took up sledding in last couple of years. Logan, Utah’ Raysha Gladfelder is just 16-years-old, but Koch said he is blown away by how talented she is. There are other sponsored riders on this year’s team, but Koch declined to name names since negotiations are still in the works. Ultimately, he said, the success of an all-women’s snowmobiling team will depend on the girls themselves.

“Once they start snowmobiling and love what they do, then we feel like we are giving back,” Koch said. “Our biggest critics are the girls we are trying to promote—the same people we are trying to help. These girls want the video and they want respect and if they want it to happen they need to step up (meaning applications/auditions) or it will never happen. They need to be activists.”

For more information on joining the team, visit snowhunnys.com.