2009 Radar Runs

This morning was the Prairie Drifters Radar Run at Lake Storey. Jeff and the guys always go (including Blake) , so I thought that Brooke and I would go this year and watch. There were lots of snowmobilers who think they are the best racers on the lake - sadly, that includes our guys! Chase, Jeff, and Joel are very competitive. But I don't get why Jeff gets mad at me about being competitive at showing cattle when you should see him getting mad because "the radar gun HAS to be wrong" or "that gun needs to be **&#ed!". He leads by example I guess!!! The idea of course is to be the fastest on the 1000' run of ice. They split them up into classes according to CC's and horsepower (or maybe they're one in the same - I don't really know or care). Some of the classes are "stock" and then there are the "modified" classes, which means they've been tweaked with probably several hundreds (or thousands) of $$$! The guys have sleds (that's snowmobile talk for snowmobiles) that fit into each class practically. It was fun watching them. I was really thinking that I would run in the powder puff class, like Jeff had originally told me, but he changed his mind, telling me that the sleds are way too fast for me. Darn it.

Here are the Chase and Jeff warming up their racing sleds.

This is Jeff's 1st run (you get to race 3x). They have this fancy contraption that lifts the sled off of the ice so they can push on the throttle to spin the track to get all of the ice off of it. I guess that gives them better traction on the ice. They have ice pics on the tracks to help dig in! He only went 102 mph on his first run. However, according to Jeff, his sled said it was going 125 mph. That's when he first thought something was wrong with the radar gun! By the way, his skis didn't hit the ground the whole way!

Here is Joel. Even if wouldn't have won his class, at least he looked the part in his matching coat/snowmobile. You know, that is important too! Jeff and Chase didn't get the memo about wearing their gear. It was back at the shop, packed up in the other trailer. They were leaving for Togwotee, Wyoming right after the radar runs. They will be there all week, snowmobiling in the mountains! Yes, that means it's just me and the kids for a week. Kind of a mini-vacation for us, too!

And here is Chase. I think they clocked him at 106 mph on his 3rd run. I think by this point, the gun was warming up and was pretty accurate. This snowmobile is "stock". So even though I didn't get to make a run, I sure sound like I know what I'm talking about, don't I???