2009 Vintage World Champion Tony Pettinelli
It was a whirlwind. I left work on noon last Friday, picked up Vance Elfering, and the two of us husseled 5 hours north and east to the little town of Eagle River Wisconsin. We got there just as the first Friday night races were starting.
I camped out in the booth provided by the VSCA and started meeting all kinds of people from off this website. Far too many for my brain to keep track of, but without question, all great people and I had some very interesting conversations from people who like every aspect of this hobby, and the Vintage weekend at the Derby Track is a highlight for them.
Friday night starts out the qualifying for Sunday’s finals, and they run a host of classes. Super-Stock and Sport Mod appeared to be the most run heats, semi’s and semi-finals on Friday night. Super-stock classes are intense! They run hard, and many of the sleds are very evenly matched.
The new RXL from Mark Anderson, I must confess, is something I knew all about. I started to build that almost three years ago, but just never had time to get anything done on it. Mark asked if he could finish it and drive it, and I thought that was a great idea. So Mark got it ready just in time.
How did it do? Well, not as well as we’d hoped. Too little time to get all the work done. Mark is going to keep working on it and will race at a couple more races this winter.
Saturday was a really great day – ending with a full moon that had everyone thinking that the racing was really going to be crazy under that moonlight. And it got crazy all right – not from the moonlight, but from the large bumps on the track – the biggest I have ever seen – that was sending people airborne and off their sleds.
Thankfully, only one injury occurred and that was, I believe, Gaston Ferland’s mechanic who was driving in 340 F/A mod. Last unofficial report was a torn rotator cuff and a broken arm. With him out, that left Gaston without a mechanic. So who volunteers to help? None other than a patriarch of the Polaris family – Aaron Johnson. I talked with him later, and Aaron said it was a blast and an honor to help the legendary Ski-Doo racer. I have to agree it would have been fun. Gaston is quickly becoming a crowd favorite out there.
Saturday night we went out to eat. Guess who is sitting at the next table? Bob Elsner. We talked with him about a possible interview for the website. He didn’t say yes right away, but said he would look at the site and get back to us. That will be fun.
Sunday was all about the finals. The track had been groomed nicely, but was still pretty rough. I gave a live "play by play" from Sledtalk 24/7.
I Really have to hand it to the crew at Eagle River. Some new safety rules and tech rules went into effect and you could see it on the track. If a sled crashed, the tech guys had to approve of the sled going back out on the track. If there was any bumping, racers got called on it. The show went off pretty much like clock work and that is saying something when you have nearly 700 entries in all those classes.
All the racing was good. A few highlights for me: Super Mod 250 – Adam Hagen and Paul Niznik were running darn near neck and neck all the way till lapped traffic caused Hagen to get off his line and gave Niznik an opening he couldn’t refuse. Slick move by Niznik, and he takes it.
Paul Socwell, I’m told has been trying for a lot of years to win – and this was his year. Paul took Mod 340 Relic on his Viking. Tom Priebe took a couple of wins on his Ski-Doo’s. He was having a great day.
In Super Mod 340 liquid, Johnny Schumacher and his amazingly fast Polaris again took top honors, making it two in a row for him. Mike Smith got a terrible hole shot – but boy did he battle his way back up through the pack making it all the way to 2nd place.
Watching the heat races, I though Kenny Kitzman was the man to beat in IFS 440, but young Troy Lefko led all five laps to the flag, Kitzman and Fackrell not very far behind.
Matt Spies on his Yamaha took Super-Mod 440 FA, and again, charging from the back of the pack all the way to 2nd was Mike Smith.
My favorite race of the day was 250X IFS. Dave Neuman bought an old used Cat IFS chassis last summer. He’s been working on it non-stop for months. Out of all the IFS sled out there, only a few did not have Rotaxes in them, and Dave’s had an original Suzuki Snopro motor in it. Dave walked away with the race and made it looks easy. Not to shabby for guy who barely has 10 laps on his sled!
We picked Troy Lefko as one to watch this year and boy did he deliver! The young man won 3 out of 4 IFS classes! I got to meet his family and the rest of the crew, and I see where this guy gets his support. Great people.
It was then time for the World Championship. A field of mostly Chapparal sleds also contained a Rupp, a Ski-Doo, a Yamaha, an Arctic Cat and three Polaris sleds. From the get go, it was Jacob Goede on his 73 Starfire out front and pulling away. Dave Pettinelli was keeping it as close to Jacob as he could get, but the Polaris was just plain blazing fast.
A couple of different restarts happened during the race, one involving another crowd favorite – Bull Stull on his mid-mount motored Rupp. Bill was in the hunt when the bumps got the best of him. They knocked his hands off the bars as he and the Rupp took a trip to the bales. It was very disappointing for Bill, has family and friends, but everyone was thankful he was okay.
The restarts put Goede and Pettinelli a little closer, and on one of the final laps, Pettinelli got past Jacob and soon after, the bumps got Jacob as well, sending him and the Starfire hurling down the ice – separately – and into the bails. He was fine.
Tony and his Chapparals came all the way from Rome New York for the title, and his brother Dave was right behind him. Fred Smith came in third.
All in all, a great weekend for vintage racing and a lot of memories created that will last a lifetime and a show that will keep people coming back year after year.
Oh, and one more thing. My disguise this year was flawless! I think only about 600 people saw me. Mike Decker may have had a better disguise. I didn’t see him anywhere. Actually, for those of you who are wondering, I was met with nothing but smiles by the Derby Track crew. They were gracious hosts to me – and everyone else.
I got home around 11:30 on Sunday night. It all seems like a blur now.
And for some reason I have the overwhelming urge to build another race sled.
Pictures from Kelly Anderson, Vance Elfering, Racechick – all used with permission.
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.
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.
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. 
But it doesn’t end there. On Sunday, most if not all of the racers will move on to Wolf Lake in Alexandria Minnesota. Sunday’s race is the Vintagesleds.com "Midwest Vintage Shootout". 
