This coming Sunday in St. Germain Wisconsin it’s the Classic Sled Roundup to benefit the Snowmobile Hall of Fame. It’s a show that always brings out some exotic, interesting and really nice sleds. It’s a swap meet that every year that I have been there, yields a bunch of stuff no one has seen in years, or is impossible to find. It’s also a brief award ceremony for the Vintage SnoPro Series, with trophies presented to the class winners, as well as our overall winner.
This year we have a repeat from Smith Brothers Racing on their Arctic Cats as a winner – but a different driver. Mike Smith of Wasilla Alaska, running several classes came away with the most points this year, defending his brother Steve’s title from 2008.
Mike has been racing since 1975. Last season the Smith Brothers Racing team was short a couple of members. Steve and Sean decided to stay home in Alaska, but Adam came to Wisconsin to go to college. Mike and Adam decided that since Adam was here already, they might as well go race.
One would expect that with two fewer drivers that Mike and Adam would scale it back a little. But no, they showed up at Rock Rapids Iowa for the first race with a fleet of Arctic Cat liquids and free-airs that would have made the original 3 tough cats proud.
The thing Mike had going for him this year was consistency. Either Mike won the race he was in, or he came in the top three. That’s a tough thing to to when your racing with so many talented, hard charging guys.
It was very interesting for me this year to watch Mike and Adam in the series this year. They had a buzz going – kind of a fan club. At each race I would run into people that just came to see what they called "them crazy Cat guys from Alaska".
It seems more than a few people were interested in seeing how a couple of dedicated Cat guys from Sarah Palin’s home town would stack up against the rest.
They were not disappointed.
Congratulations to Mike – and he has confirmed that he will be at the Classic Sled Roundup on Sunday to collect his trophy.
There’s some other surprises coming to St. Germain that I know of … One is green has not been seen since the late 70’s in this form. One is black and green and is the first real 75 Cat race sled to be seen at the Roundup. Rumor has it that not one, but two 75 Yamaha’s will be there.
Oh boy. This is going to be interesting.
Photos courtesy of Kelly Anderson, Larry Preston, Mike Smith