iamsnowi goes racing

AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com

When someone offers you the chance to race in the I-500, on THEIR sled, you say yes! Every Ricky Racer and Ditchbanging Dandy out there has dreamed of competing with the pros.

We certainly did!

Kale Wainer, Arctic Cat's media relations stud, invited us to ride a Cat-prepped F5 in a special Media Class for the race. After the woo-hoos and fist pumping ended, we worked out a plan for Senior Editor Mark Boncher and Test Riders Brian Moore and Butch Veltum to pilot the sled, one per day for 3 days.

The '08 Red Lake I-500 was run in mid-January from the 7 Clans Casino near Thief River Falls in northern Minnesota. The weather was brutal; highs never rose even close to zero. Race-time temps were in the -10 to -16 F range, with winds up to 30 mph.

We met with Kale, Pat Mach of the United States Cross Country racing association and the Team Arctic race crew the day before to discuss the rules, get a few pointers, see the sled and talk with our assigned wrench, Erik McKay. Safety and bringing the sled home in one piece were highly encouraged.

We agreed and promptly bought some tape for our faces and also to tape foam in our helmets to ward off the frostbite. We won the frostbite battle and also finished all 3 days, something about half the other record number (85) of racers couldn't claim.

Here's the story from behind the bars!

The newbies
To start, this race is grueling. But our AmSnow crew was all smiles for months before, and we're still grinning months afterward. This was a dream we'd all had, to compete next to the pros.

We didn't know what to expect, nor had we planned on such an extremely bitter cold Minnesota weekend. This was cross-country racing at its toughest. When you pound close to 500 miles of ditches, woods, rivers, swamps and some of the nastiest terrain you can imagine, it'll take a little out of you.

Thirteen classes ran the I-500 this year. Our media class consisted of five identically prepared F5s sponsored by Arctic Cat and their associates. The media teams were allowed to race with three riders, but the real race teams just have one for the whole 3-day bash.

Butch, Brian and I each had racing experience in grass and asphalt drags before this race, but mostly were greenhorns. None of us had ever been in a full cross-country race, nor had we trained for it. Basically, we are three guys of varying ages (30 to 44), heights, weights and backgrounds, who love to ride and were excited to test our metal.

The course
Each leg started and ended at the 7 Clans Casino, and except for the first 10-12 miles out from the starting gate, the course was different each day. The first 110+ mile leg was run on Friday and started with a bit of ditch banging, then about 55 miles of tight river running that went right through downtown Thief River Falls, and finally back into the ditches for the return loop.

I was the guinea pig, running that first leg, but learned quite a few cross-country race lessons along the way.

First, the gas stop is very important, and there's at least one gas stop each day, sometimes two. That first day, the stop was in a big park in downtown TRF.

Because of the gaggle of Cat-sponsored riders that dove into the gas stop at the same time that day (we each left 20 seconds apart) we were short a funnel. That cost us several spots and precious time because it took longer to fuel our racy looking green and white F5.

The second lesson was that while you may be friends with other racers, out on the course anyone can get pushed off into the trees if they don't get out of the faster driver's way. You must constantly check who's behind you and work on getting around those in front of you without wrecking. I was on both ends of this that first day, but brought the sled home safe and sound, and Team AmSnow was far from the last snowmobile across the finish stripe.

Brian took the second and longest leg on day two. He quickly learned another lesson, your helmet and goggle setup and apparel are paramount. Concerned with the bitter cold, Brian overdressed. However, his goggle setup was the real problem. Within the first 10 miles his goggles were fogged and iced, and changing to a backup pair didn't help. So, Brian soldiered on for 140+ miles without goggles, ducking behind the windshield as much as possible. Did we mention it was a high of -15 degrees that day BEFORE wind-chill?

Then, our sled had a hiccup, shredding a belt after the second gas stop. After replacing the belt with frozen hands and having seriously reduced vision, Brian posted a solid time and brought the sled back at the end of the run without a scrape. He got our tough guy award for the weekend.

Learning from his team, Butch dressed lighter to run the last leg, a shorter version of day two's loop. This one was just over 120 miles of beat up ditches with giant drop-offs and super-fast river running. Butch probably had the most uneventful day of driving, but in racing, that's usually a good thing.

Day three was a tad warmer, only -6 F, and most of the bugs had been worked out of our system. Everything, from sled tech and warm-up to driver timing his arrival at the starting line to our gas stop, went smoothly. Butch turned in a great time and was stoked at the finish line, saying he could go 100 more miles.

There were high-fives all around and even a few chest bumps I think.

For a third day we returned with a sled that looked like it suffered only a few bent studs. That's not easy in a race where almost half the sleds didn't finish.We ended third in class, but we finished!

What we learned
Anyone can go racing!

If you're a hotshot trail rider, get out there and walk the walk, it's a blast! One snocrosser we overheard complaining of being tired in the pits said, "It's like a 2-hour snocross!" That's true, but the cramps in your forearms, burning thighs and sore back are all part of the thrill of USCC racing and the world's first true type of snowmobile racing.

For more info, photos or to get in on the action, check out www.usccracing.com.

Racy F5 tech report
Team Arctic did a super job setting up our 2008 F5. There was a Fox Float shock package up front running 70 PSI. Also, the sled received race treatment in the rear IFP shocks and springs so it was not the consumer sled's calibration. The limiter strap was sucked up to the third hole too. We turned the billeted adjuster to the stiffest setting on the torsion spring, and an extra set of idler wheels was installed. Stud Boy furnished a full 102 set of dual backer studs and aggressive 9-inch Shaper carbides too. We ran with the stock medium height windshield.

Next, the seat was strapped down to the tunnel and we had hood latches to keep it together in case we took a tumble. Under the hood, the clutch squeezed the belt per Cat's cross-country racing spring and clutch setup. Add a skid plate and some snazzy graphics, and this stock F5 was ready to run.

In three days of racing through huge cliff-like washouts, 6-foot high moguls, 30-foot road approach launches and miles of WOT, our only glitches were two broken coupler blocks and a blown belt.

Our sponsors for the event include:
Black Magic Racing, www.BlackMagicRacing.com
Blown Concepts, www.BlownConcepts.com
Fox Racing Shox, www.FoxRacingShox.com
Stud Boy Traction, www.StudBoyTraction.com
USCC Racing, www.USCCRacing.com
Mylaps, www.Mylaps.com

Winners?
For the fourth time, Ski-Doo racer Bryan Dyrdahl won the RydeFX sponsored Pro Open class and the FXR Pro 600 at the Red Lake race. See more race results here.