flip merwin fatally injured in derby accident

Twenty-eight-year-old Flip Merwin, a snowmobile racer from Wausau, Wisconsin, was fatally injured Saturday night after crashing while leading the final event of the day at the 40th Eagle River World Championship Snowmobile Derby.

Merwin was leading the last semifinal of the Champ 440 class with a little more than one lap to go when his racing sled appeared to hit a rut in the racetrack surface. His sled darted to the right, slamming the outside wall. No other competitors were involved in the crash.

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel quoted Dale Loritz, a close friend of Merwin's, as noting that Merwin "…was running a higher groove, and it was really rough up there. The bumps coming out of 4, they really grab you. They really make your sled drift high. I was trying to run up there earlier, but it was getting too scary, so I came back down."

Merwin, a veteran racer and the owner of an embroidery business, was on the verge of qualifying for his third World Championship feature. He finished eighth in 1999 and fourth in 2001.