Snowmobile Drag Races

This past Saturday I was able to watch my brother compete in the annual Blackfoot Snowmobile Water Drag Races. It's an event that is held each summer at a local lake in conjunction with Blackfoot Pride Days. This year my brother Travis decided he would race his sled in the event. He was pretty nervous heading into the first run of the day because he'd never tried it before and one little mistake and your snowmobile will be at the bottom of the lake. To make things even worse the class he thought he'd be competing in (600 Modified) wasn't a class option that day. So the race organizers bumped him up to the 700 Modified class which meant he'd be racing sleds with bigger engines and possibly more power. His first race of the day was pretty close. The racers start on the beach on one side of the lake. They have about 3 feet to build up enough speed to float the sled on the water. If you don't get right on the throttle you don't build up enough speed and you are swimming. Travis' snowmobile wasn't quite warmed up enough so when he hit the gas it kind of cut out. Luckily he got enough momentum to get his sled floating but it gave the other guy he was racing a chance to pull ahead. After traveling about 10 feet across the lake you could see Travis' sled come alive and he started closing the gap between him and the other guy. By the half way mark Travis was way out in front and ended up winning the race. In the second round Travis had a perfect start and was able to grab enough of a lead that his opponent couldn't catch him. He ended up taking first place in the 700 Mod class which was pretty exciting.