Xtreme Mountain Racing Visits the Wyman Winter Festival
February 19, 2010
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.
Chapman Under the Lights!
In the Juniors classes, Dillon Moss took the 16-17 title and the 14-17 Xtreme title. Wesley Chapman was a close second in the 16-17, and Chapman managed the win in the 14-15 class. Likewise AJ Stoffle kept up his winning streak in both the 10-13 and the 10-13 Challenge, and was looking good on the sled all weekend – it won’t be long before this guy moves up…Michelle Stoffle came back from an injury in Afton and won the Sport Women main in front of her hometown crowd as well!
We can forget the little sleds either… The Green Brothers Jarret and Kyler moved up to 7-10 this race and took first and second respectively. This left the door open for Jake Gill in the 120 Stock class, Payton Hogan in the 120 Super, and Grey Mathews in the 120 Champ to all take their wins. These little ones put on a great show and had a lot of fun on the big track at Craig!
This is always one of the best XMR events of the season, so if you missed it this year, start planning for next. XMR will be in Grand Lake again this weekend with Snocross and Drag races planned for Saturday and Sunday, followed by more racing action in Walden, CO the following weekend. More information on XMR and full race results and point standings can be found on the XMR website at www.xmrracing.com. See everyone at the Track!
Xtreme Mountain Racing Lights Up Afton, WY
February 8, 2010
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 13-14th 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
January 31, 2010
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.
Heath Frisby Wins X Games Gold
January 29, 2010
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.
Hibbert Reasserts Himself At Canterbury
January 22, 2010
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 51st 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
January 9, 2010
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
January 9, 2010
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.
Andrew Carlson Wins Elk River Semi-Pro Open
January 6, 2010
Elk River, Minnesota (January 5, 2010) – Racing your home track is usually always cause for celebration, but this past weekend such jubilation was held in check for Team Sportech as the challenges of the ERX Motor Park track were heightened by lingering heavy snow dust creating a very difficult racing environment. Still there was cause for celebration as Andrew Carlson captured his first win of the season in Semi-Pro Open amid very stiff competition.
With an off-weekend on the national tour, the focus of the snocross racing community turned to the Minnesota Regional ISOC event held at ERX Motor Park in Elk River, Minnesota. Many of the Midwest’s top teams were in attendance taking advantage of the “close” proximity of the event thereby creating a level of competition likened to a national.
Hibbert Takes National Win No. 50 Saturday Night In Milwaukee
December 19, 2009
This just in, Tucker Hibbert is human – and he was actually beat at the snowy and windy Milwaukee National.
Tucker Hibbert took Pro win No. 50 in his career at Milwaukee
The problem, at least for the competition, is that Hibbert’s defeats came in heat races. When it was time to chase the cheese, Hibbert again schooled the field in both Pro Stock on Friday night and Pro Open on Sunday night.
For Hibbert, the driver who swept every Pro weekend last year before leaving the circuit to chase his motocross dreams, it was another weekend sweep to start this season after doing the same thing last weekend in Duluth, Minnesota. It was win number 50 on the national snocross scene – between WPSA and ISOC – for Hibbert.
Saturday night, Hibbert again scored a come behind victory. The holeshot and early lead was claimed by Brett Bender on the No. 19 Polaris of New York, Bender held the point for the first three laps in the 22 lap final before being passed in the air over the main tabletop jump by Hibbert. Hibbert again methodically pulled away on his Monster Energy Drink Arctic Cat, pulling away to a 9 second victory.
On the podium, Hibbert said about the only problem he has was with the roost, reporting that one time he got a mouthful of snow when pulling up behind a sled he was about to lap that made it hard for him to breath. From the outside, though, nobody could tell, as Hibbert again looked close to perfect.
Bender held second the rest of the race – fellow Polaris racer Ross Martin closed within .8 seconds a couple of times, but he never got close enough to truly challenge. Those two took the last two spots on the podium.
“Right before the race I was telling my dad [hall of fame racer Tim Bender] and everybody [on his team] that if I just got through the first corner I’d be excited because it seems I haven’t got through that first corner yet this year,” said Bender, who had gotten tangled up with riders early in the other three finals this year.
“As soon as [Hibbert] got by me, I though, OK, just calm down and try to stay with him and see what he’s doing,” Bender said. But Bender bobbled a couple times and allowed Hibbert out of his sights.
Hibbert, meanwhile, admitted being human on the podium, saying that sometimes he struggles to find the motivation to keep training for riding. But, between devine inspiration for the religious rider, a desire to not let his team down and the threat of competitors sneaking up on him, Hibbert continues to push to improve.
“I’d like to say thanks to the fans, the whole team, and thanks to the guys on the podium for giving me the motivation to keep working hard,” Hibbert said.
Robbie Malinoski (Pol) finished fourth, followed be Brett Tucotte (Doo), Cory Davis (Cat), Tim Tremblay (Doo), Emil Ohman (Doo), Dan Ebert (Cat) and Paul Bauerly (Doo). Crowd favorite Levi LaVallee struggled deep in the pack before coming off his ride with about five laps left.
Earlier, Logan Christian claimed a very entertaining Semi-Pro Stock victory.
Hibbert Completes Pro Sweep In Duluth
December 13, 2009
The T-Train kept rolling Sunday at Spirit Mountain in Duluth, Minnesota, as Tucker Hibbert rolled over the competition in the Pro Open final.
Hibbert, 25, was unbeaten last year in ISOC racing action, and he started this season with the same dominating style, winning every time his Arctic Cat sleds took to the track. He now has 48 wins as a Pro on the national circuit.
Originally slated for the traditional Thanksgiving weekend but postponed due to unseasonably warm weather, weather today on the shores of Lake Superior was cold, making the racetrack hard and fast with thick snowdust that challenged the racers.
The early lead in the 22-lap Pro Open final was claimed by Robbie Malinoski, riding his first weekend as part of the Amsoil Schuering Speed Sports team in the Amsoil sponsored Pro Open class at the Amsoil Duluth National on the Amsoil Championship Snocross Series across the harbor from Amsoil’s headquarters in Superior, Wisconsin.
Pressure? Maybe, but the real pressure was being mounted by Hibbert. Within a couple of laps Hibbert moved into the lead and never looked back. He ended up winning the final by eight seconds, but it was never close, as he built a full straight-away lead within the first eight laps and then held it through lapped traffic.