Levi LaVallee jumped an incredible 361 feet while preparing for his Red Bull New Year No Limits world record snowmobile distance jump in San Diego.
Unfortunately, Levi was injured shortly thereafter and as a result, the December 31 event has been canceled. But as the 361-foot jump eclipsed the existing record by 60 feet, it will be submitted for world record certification.
Levi expects to make a full recovery.
We’ll get right to it. This is the best 800 twin Polaris has ever put in a snowmobile.
This EPA 2012 mill is fast, it’s smooth and there’s almost no smoke emitted either at start-up, idle or when it’s running.
We’ve run it against a couple of E-TEC 800 Ski-Doos we have in our fleet and so far there’s no way to tell which one is quicker.
It’s amazingly close, with one beating the other and vice-versa every time. We’re anxious to get out on some safe lakes to see how the real high speed comparison goes.
This 2-injector 800 is unlike the recent 4-injector mill (2010) that had a strange flat spot in the midrange – none here – and the rough running personality of early 800 Polaris twins is completely gone.
We recommend electric start with this sled as we do with all 800 and larger 2-strokes. A big-incher like this can be a bear to pull over on a cold day.
Polaris has done a great job with the Pro-Ride back end this year and the way the new RUSH rides simply cannot be compared to last year’s version.
We’ve been playing with the compression damping a bit, but right now at this early point of the season, we hesitate to give you any specs on how you should set up this chassis.
Most certainly, there’s less fiddling required and perhaps none required at all if your riding style and weight are the right fit for the factory settings.
We’re very impressed with this sled and we’ve been benchmarking it against the TNT 800 E-TEC Ski-Doo. So far it seems to be every bit its equal. We’ll be posting more as winter deepens.
Levi Lavallee’s blog page posted the official announcement today that as a result of injuries sustained this week during practice, Lavallee’s world record jump attempt scheduled for New Year’s Eve will have to be cancelled.
Details of his injuries are still shaky at the moment however, the public and his loyal followers can rest assured that, while still hospitalized, his condition is listed as “stable” and Levi is expected to make a full recovery.
It was also revealed that during the testing and practice sessions, Lavallee achieved a record setting distance jump of 361 feet, which surpasses the current record by a whopping 60 feet! This distance is being submitted for world record certification.
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Through very cryptic postings on Facebook, ESPN’s website and various Google searches on the subject we have learned that Levi Lavallee has been hospitalized following an injury that occurred during practice for his world record distance jump scheduled for New Year’s Eve.
No information has been released as to what injuries he sustained, however it has been noted that he is in the hospital in stable condition.
Levi was apparently practicing on a similar ramp that he intends to use for the record jump when the injury occurred. However, few further details have been made public.
More news to follow when it becomes available. Our thoughts are with you Levi.
No, it’s not a beachwear article! The Supertrax staff were curious about how accurate the speedometers are on snowmobiles these days.
This is especially interesting as you consider how sled speedos have gone from cable-operated units to electronic instrumentation the last few years.
It used to be that if your speedometer was a couple of clicks off at 20 mph, by the time you got up to about 75 the thing could be off by more than ten miles per hour.
With the new electronic stuff, the ratios are all off and it’s hard to predict whether the speed you’re going is even close to what the gauges read. This info is particularly important if you’re trying to check your gas mileage accurately.
Supertrax used GPS technology to verify four new snowmobiles, one from each OEM, and then re-ran the results several times to make sure the readings were as close to true as possible.
You can check out the details and results in the upcoming issue (December 15, 2010) or get your own online copy at ZINIO.com.
Its finally time! Another season of SnowTrax Television returns to the airwaves starting December 27th!
Luke, AJ and Motorhead Mark Lester are back for another season full of informative and in-depth evaluations of all the sleds you want to know about. Plus the guys are in the shop with new projects you won’t want to miss.
Also this season, the crew has traveled around the world to bring you excitement from all across North America, Austria and Finland! Don’t miss a single episode!
SnowTrax can be seen on Outdoor Channel across the United States and on TSN and TSN2 across Canada. If you currently aren’t a subscriber to these channels, contact your cable or satellite provider and order now!
Watch Preview Now:
Visit snowtraxtv.com to find the complete schedule.
Dylan Martin used his weekend off between ISOC races to visit Ontario and the CSRA circuit and while the friendly local people welcomed him – the native racers probably wished he would have stayed home.
Martin took home the big trophy by winning the weekend’s premier event, Pro Open class, with a solid performance. Fellow X-teamers David Joanis and Mike Island backed up the win as they came home in third and fourth place respectively.
In the Pro Stock race Island grabbed the second spot while Martin took third and Joanis came home fourth.
Another Dylan – this time Dylan Hall – served notice that he’s the real deal by taking both Semi-Pro Open and Semi-Pro Stock classes over the weekend. Max Tallifer and Jeremy Van Dolder both claimed podium finishes in the Semi-Pro division also.
Congrats to Tom Bachly and Stephanie Willis who both had multiple wins in the Sport class division – your hard work is recognized and appreciated.
The racing action was hot in Fargo, North Dakota this weekend despite the cold blast Mother Nature delivered with wind chills reaching -20ºF both days.
The BRP/Ski-Doo X-Team racers showed up ready for the challenge with Tim Tremblay leading the charge in Pro classes and getting some support along the way from Robbie Malinoski and Justin Broberg.
The race was held on an outdoor baseball stadium featuring tight quarters in the turns and some big air in a couple spots – much like a Supercross track for motorcycles.
In the Friday night Pro Open class the X-Team had a strong showing with Robbie Malinoski qualifying in the number one position with Broberg and Tremblay close behind. When the green flag dropped on the final Tremblay fought through the first turn to come out in second position.
The tight track proved challenging as Tremblay actually came off a little over half way through the race, but managed to stay close enough to his sled allowing him to remount quickly and continue. Malinoski and Broberg worked through the bumps and snow dust to bring home fourth and fifth place finishes respectively while Tremblay claimed the third spot on the podium.
Unfortunately injuries claimed two racers as Boss Racing’s Brett Turcotte dislocated his thumb and Paul Bauerly suffered a broken arm – ending their weekends and in Bauerly’s case his season.
Saturday dawned with clear skies and unrelenting winds as temperatures felt like -25 F during the qualifying rounds.
Defending Pro Stock champion Tremblay, Malinoski and Broberg all moved quickly through their Pro Stock heats and into the final race of the weekend.
When the green flag flew Malinoski hammered through the first lap and settled into second position as his fellow X-teamers had to come from the back of the pack. Broberg was charging hard again until he stuck his knee into the throttle flipper and shattered it – ending his race.
Tremblay continued to push forward and while making a move on the tight course clipped Malinoski and ending his day also. Tremblay managed to hang on through the incident and brought home a third place trophy for his efforts.
Racing in the Semi-Pro ranks Derek Ellis and Darrin Mees continued to show strong results as Ellis collected a fourth place finish on Friday and second on Saturday while Mees collected a third place trophy on Saturday. Both are in good position for the season championship points races and hungry for their first wins in 2011.
North Dakota brought the X-Team its first Sport class podium as Spencer Cowing took home a second place finish, backing up his brother Preston’s win in Junior 16-17 earlier in the day.
And congrats to Trent Wittwer for winning junior 10-13 on a Ski-Doo MXZ 550 – we understand that sometimes scoring shows the wrong brand, but you lead a sweep for Ski-Doo snowmobiles.
We’ve been puzzling a bit about a slowly ebbing enthusiasm for snocross racing compared to the same loss of focus we observed a couple of decades ago for oval racing.
First, lets be clear: There are still a good number of people racing ovals and there are still lots of snowmobilers who are fans and participants in snocross.
Will snocross disappear? We don’t think so, but is it still the same top-of-mind influencer when it comes to buyers making decisions in showrooms as to what brand or model they will buy?
Good question, but we do know that oval racing lost its ability to direct buyers into showrooms when the race sleds became completely exclusive racer-only sleds and not the kinds of snowmobiles people could buy at a dealership.
In fact Sno-Pro became so dominated by Ski-Doo’s twin track racers, the rest of the industry simply quit building sno-pro oval racers and packed in their participation. Interestingly, this dominance didn’t help Ski-Doo’s sales one iota.
Today, snocross, at least at the pro level, is being so dominated by the race-only sleds built by Polaris and Arctic Cat, we wonder if consumer interest is dropping because of it.
We wonder if the sleds being raced at the pro level were the same ones you buy in showrooms, more people would identify with the brands and support the sport. History does repeat itself, you know.
The upcoming issue of Supertrax provides a ton of information on the next EPA hurdles snowmobiles, in particular 2-strokes, will have to jump through.
After a lot of digging, Kent Lester was able to come up with the information the OEM engineers have been dealing with the last eight years.
Of particular interest are the specs on the new sleds and how well the list of 2-stroke engines have done in meeting EPA-specified levels of compliance in the past.
It’s pretty interesting fodder to acquaint yourself with as you try to predict the strategies the manufacturers will be following for the kinds of snowmobiles engines they’ll be required to build over the next four or five years.
The next hoop the OEMs will be jumping through (after 2012) is 2015 and those specifications start a whole new ball game.
Read about it and check the charts in this revealing article available on newsstands or online at ZINIO.com
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