No Snow, Snow Problem

Confounding as it may be to the uninitiated, snow is not a prerequisite for snowmobiling.

Under a warm late-September sun in a field of yellowed grass at Keller Ranch, sled enthusiasts tuned up their machines for a series of dusty drag races under the auspices of the newly revived Montana Snowmobile Racing Association.

Once heralded by national snowmobiling publications as “The Best of the West,” the statewide association boasted over 500 racing members at its peak before fizzling out in 2010. The post-2008 recession economy, travel expenditures associated with traversing a place as large as Montana, and an aging pool of racers all played a role in the wind-down. But in its heyday, the association hosted multi-seasonal circuits on ice, snow and grass all around Big Sky Country.

Fifteen or so years later, two-stroke driven nostalgia proved overpowering for some of the core members of the old sled guard as it returned one of its signature shoulder-season events to the Flathead Valley. Aficionados such as Gary Poepping of Helena reconnected and jumped at the chance to race again. He happily offered his time and technical expertise to help stage the first organized grass drag in the state since the glory days.

“There’s 800s, 700s, 900s, turbos, 600s,” Poepping explained, as he neatly recorded results from the various racing classes on a giant whiteboard at the start line. “Then there’s stock, which is right off the showroom floor from the dealer, usually. Then there’s improved. That you can put a pipe or a can on … then the mod class — you can do absolutely anything you want to them.”

The escalating degrees of acceleration were appreciable on the souped-up machines. Some sleds bucked the instant the start light turned green, nearly reaching the end of the 400-foot-long track in two blinks of an eye, their treads shredding the grass into straw and aerosolizing the soil.  

Amanda Berlinger, president of the Flathead Snowmobile Association, said she hopes the grass drag inspires enough snowmobilers to get involved to sustain a range of events in the years ahead.

So far, the return of the circuit seems to be off to a good start. Grins abounded among racers and spectators alike. As racer Jake Overbaugh of Lolo observed, “It’s always a good time when snowmobiles are involved.”

For more images, see the full gallery here