From the Editors

The Battle Over Yellowstone Continues: Get Involved

It’s baa-aa-ack. Just when you thought the snowmobiles-in-Yellowstone issue was going away (OK, admit it, if you’ve been following this thing, you’ve NEVER thought the issue was going away), another list of proposals for winter access to Yellowstone National Park has been launched. Several of the proposals, of course, include banning you, I and all other snowmobile riders from this great American treasure.

The battle over access to Yellowstone National Park is worth the fight.

            A lot of people wonder “Why should I care” or say, “I’m never going there, it’s not my fight.” Well, if you care about access to all public land, it truly is your fight, because what happens there will affect access and trails in other parts of the country.

            The fight has been long, frustrating and it’s not going away anytime soon – or at least I HOPE it’s not going away anytime soon, because the only way it’s going to go away in the near future is if the haters win and just ban snowmobile access to the park.

            The worse part of the access battle is that it just defies logic. The people who are calling for an end to snowmobiles in the park are spewing bad statistics and lies to build a case that just isn’t there.

            Here is a link to a Billings Gazette article that outlines the six alternatives currently under discussion. It’s a very quick read and worth your time.  

            Below is the text of my <strong>Snow Goer</strong> column from our December 2009 issue, using the National Park Services own stats to debunk some of the arguments the extreme environmentalists use to say sleds should be banned from the park.

Feel free to pull anything you want out of the column if or when you write to your congress person or comment on the Yellowstone issue through the formal public comment period.

You should care, and it is your fight, too. Also, here’s a link to a photo essay put together by our Tom Kaiser, showing some of the beauty of Yellowstone that some folks are trying to lock us out of.

Stop The Misinformation

By John T. Prusak

“Great news,” the Minneapolis TV anchor gleefully reported. “In the month of July, Yellowstone National Park set a record when more than 900,000 people visited the park. The park also set an all-time high for June, when more than 644,000 people visited America’s first national park. Park officials attribute the boost to relatively low gas prices this summer.”

            Yep, things are looking up in Yellowstone – attendance records were being broken this past summer as people made their way through one of America’s treasures. The hotels and campgrounds in and around the park were packed – it was a great summer, local folks would tell you.

Sure enough, there’s only on thing that’s threatening this great piece of Americana – snowmobiles. Just look at the numbers.

Last winter, fewer than 33,000 snowmobiles entered the park over a four-month

period (all numbers in this piece are from the National Park Service). Those snowmobiles

were required to stay on the trail – a singular ribbon that takes visitors to and from Old

Faithful.

In fact, snowmobiles are allowed on less than 1 percent of the 2.2 million acres

of Yellowstone National Park, and only on strictly enforced, guided tours traveling on

best-available-technology snowmobiles.

            Moreover, combining snowmobiles, automobiles, snow coaches and any other means of travel, Yellowstone had 86,793 visitors from December through March last winter, but from May through October, it’ll have more than 2.7 million visitors, and the total for all of 2008 was 3,066,580.

            So, fewer than 3 percent of annual visitors enter in the four-month winter, and snowmobiles are the problem? During the summer, RVs, trucks, motorcycles, tour buses and passenger cars clog the roadways and fill the campgrounds. None of theses vehicles cause air pollution? None of these people litter?

In fact, we celebrate that many summer visitors in Yellowstone – press releases are written, newspapers rave about Americans getting back to nature, the talking heads gush. It’s as if each of those 900,000 July visitors were magically transported in vehicles that don’t require energy, none of the people ate, drank, had any bodily functions or encountered any animal. Instead, they somehow hovered above the park, and none saw each other – each person was on their own tiny island of peace and solitude.

            Yet one-tenth of that number entered the park over a four-month period last winter, and just 3.7 percent visited on snowmobile. Stated another way, in July the average daily visitors was 29,048. Last winter, an average of 205 snowmobiles per day entered the park.

And snowmobiles are the problem?

A Salt Lake Tribune editorial stated, “scientific research clearly indicates that snowmobiles … don’t mix well with wildlife and the quiet, pristine air and natural wonders that national parks are created to protect.” The Denver Post editors hoped further snowmobile restrictions or a ban can help restore “peace at one of America’s most special places.”

Quiet? Pristine? Peace? With 900,000 visitors in one month?

It’s time to stop the villianization of snowmobiles and snowmobilers. We cannot celebrate huge July attendance for Yellowstone while we decry a microfraction of that number making highly restricted visits on vehicles that get better fuel mileage than the RVs and SUVs that pack the park in the summer.

Yellowstone does not have a snowmobile problem – it has a perception problem, and the mainstream media is perpetuating a myth.

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 the rest of Will New Swedish Sensation Remind Of The Flying Finn? »

What’s Worse Than LeBron James’ Self Indulgance? Snowmobile Grass Drag Racing, Apparently!

 Moments ago I was driving back to work from some lunchhour with a local sports radio station (AM-1500) playing in the background. They were yammering on-and-on about the LeBron James self-gratification last week – you know, the hour-long, made-for-TV event on ESPN-TV, where James apparently wanted us all to hold our breath until the moment he told us he was going to play for the Miami Heat and settle for his millions in income-tax-free Florida?

            The guest on the radio program, Steve Aschburner (currently of NBA.com but previously a sports journalist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Milwaukee Journal, among others), said he was in Greenwich, Connecticut, last week “covering” the James’ TV show called “The Decision.” And he used this analogy to describe what it was like covering this horrible event:  It was the second worst assignment he’d ever had in his professional reporting career, topped only by the time he was sent to cover a snowmobile race in Wisconsin, featuring snowmobiles racing on grass in the summer.  (paraphrased – I didn’t have a notebook or tape recorder in the Durango)

Don't listen to him Marchbank, grass drag racing is indeed cool!

           So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen – the only thing worse than the LBJ fiasco was our sport!! It’s a dubious distinction to be sure.

            I remember when I went to my first grass drag race in the fall of 1993. It was in Mason City, Iowa. It’s bad enough that I was in that God-forsaken town (inside jab at friend from Mason City intended here). The sleds were lined up four wide, the low-tech light system in front of them flashed and then the four sleds launched off the line and went in a straight line for 660 feet, with the top two advancing to the next round. Dust flew, the wind blew, it was about 95 degrees and humid. This was my future!  

            Back then, grass drag racing was bigger than it is now – in fact, if I recall right, there were 50-some-odd entries in the big Stock classes that day. This is also where I met folks like Glenn Erlandson, Pat Hauck, Craig Marchbank and Dean Schroeder for the first time.

Back when we had Snow Week magazine kicking out 18 issues a year, including six issues each fall, I grew to love grass drag racing! I knew all the players, the rules, the classes, the inside politics and I really enjoyed learning about how some of the Improved Stock, Pro Stock and mod sleds were built and tuned. In the ‘90s, there were some years where they’d get 900-plus entries at Haydays and 700-plus at Ohio, New York, or Epping, New Hampshire. It was a huge deal in our little world.

            But still, even for a snowmobiler like me, thinking back to my first time viewing snowmobiles compete on a grass strip in August, it did seem peculiar – I can’t imagine what a mainstream journalist like Aschburner thought…

       Well, maybe we don’t have to imagine what he thought, given what he said on the radio this afternoon. Grass drag racing is a bit quirky, but can it possibly be the worst thing he’s ever covered in his entire careeer? He started at the Milwaukee Journal in 1979, for cripes sake!!

       Oh well, what’s the old saying about publicity? Good or bad, say whatever you want, just spell my name right? That’s s-n-o-w-m-o-b-i-l-e  g-r-a-s-s  d-r-a-g  r-a-c-i-n-g, Aschburner!