After months of preparation and shadows of doubt creeping into the minds of snowmobile enthusiasts, the Cor PowerSports Midwest Extreme Snowmobile Challenge (MESC) finally took place April 18-19 in Lutsen, Minn.
Saturday arrived with clear blue skies, temps in the 50’s, and some of the most challenging courses seen to date by racers in the Midwest. There has never been a crosscountry race with so much elevation change. It was almost intimidating. Hard fought battles ensued in almost every race, highlighted by the rivalry of Yamaha racer Ben Lindbom and the Ski-Doo’s Dillan Dohrn. Lindbom bested Dohrn by just more than 1.5 seconds in the Pro Stock crosscountry portion of the event!
After 6 rounds of cross country racing it was time to switch over to Hillclimb competition. The course that Nick Gustafson & Matthew Tingstad laid out was one of the best Hillclimb courses these Midwest racers have ever had a chance to run. After 70 runs at the hill and just a handful of times of under 1 minute, the racing was done for the day. Fast qualifying of the day for hillclimbs was Ski-Doo racer Kurt Bauerly with a time of 54.947 seconds. Polaris racer Storm Johnson had a blazing pass at 52.915 but unfortunately missed a gate when a mogul tossed him just outside the course marker.
Sunday morning brought rain and dense fog over the mountain. After course officials assessed the situation, it became clear that the hillcross course was destroyed by the rain and forced that portion of the event to be cancelled.
The crew had tightened up the hillclimb course layout Saturday, and with the heavy wet snow on Sunday the top Pro riders struggled to get times in the 50-second range even with the shortened course. At the end of the finals Ski-Doo’s Bauerly won the Stock King and Mod King championships and Polaris racer Storm Johnson won the Open King championship by .7 seconds over Ski-Doo’s Travis Kaurala.
Bauerly and Johnson each qualified for the 2016 Jackson Hole Hillclimbs with their wins.
With the hillcross portion canceled they asked for us to get them something to race so we created a Hillclimb II class that anyone who signed up for hillcross could run. It wasn’t the bar to bar action they were looking for but a chance to sling some snow and have some fun, some of them put up times that would have given the hillclimb guys fits so who knows what next year will bring!
Full results for the MESC can be found here. For more information on Cor PowerSports visit www.corpowersports.com.
Photos: 447 Photography