The central Minnesota town of Longville has only about 150 residents, but it’s famous for at least two things.
It’s the turtle racing capital of the world.
And it’s the home of Levi LaVallee.
LaVallee is a championship pro snowmobile racer, but that’s not why he was on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" last week or why he’s going to be on "Good Morning America" this week.
The spotlight is on LaVallee right now because on New Year’s Eve, he plans to get on a snowmobile, aim it at a ramp surfaced with artificial turf set up in the San Diego harbor, and hurl himself nearly 400 feet through the air to set a world record for a snowmobile jump.
You can see if he makes it by watching the televised spectacle "Red Bull: New Year. No Limits," scheduled live on Dec. 31 on ESPN starting at 10 p.m.
LaVallee, 29, actually was supposed to make the jump last New Year’s Eve, and in a practice jump in California last December, he set the current world record of 361 feet.
But later that night, he tried another practice jump and the snowmobile’s carburetor started acting up.
He was flying through the air at about 100 miles per hour and about 40 feet above the ground when the snowmobile’s nose pitched down and he smashed into the ground.
He woke up in the hospital three days later with a cracked pelvis, broken ribs, collapsed lungs and three fractured vertebrae.
"And obviously, I got a concussion," LaVallee said.
"I came to, and I thought, ‘What are we
doing here?’ " he said. "I don’t even remember hitting the jump."
But three months later, the 5-foot-6-inch LaVallee was riding a snowmobile again.
And on New Year’s Eve, he’ll be back in San Diego with a new custom sled which he’ll use to launch over a 300-foot-wide channel of water in a simultaneous jump with motorcyclist Robbie Maddison.
LaVallee’s affinity for motorized extremes goes back to his youth growing up in Longville. He said he wasn’t quite 4 years old when he started riding a four-wheeler. Soon he was jumping the machine over a ramp made from a car hood.
"I rode that thing like it was my job," he said.
He got into snowmobiling when he was about 7 and rode a snowmobile to school. He entered his first snowmobile race when he was 12, coming in second against a field of adults.
In 2002, he became a pro snocross racer and in 2007 started doing snowmobile freestyle stunts, winning multiple titles at the Winter X Games.
To practice jumps, LaVallee built a ramp in Longville with a foam pit at the end.
The foam pit is basically a 50-by-40-foot building with a retractable roof that’s filled 10 feet deep with thousands of foam rubber cubes.
In a practice jump, LaVallee and his snowmobile make a cushioned landing in the pit and then get hoisted out by the arm of a modified logging truck.
"It works out really good," LaVallee said.
The set-up helped him become the first person to try a snowmobile double back flip in a competition. Although he fell off the sled at the landing, the stunt got him more fame than his snocross championship.
"I was excited that we got the rotations around and we were able to show it’s possible," he said.
He doesn’t remember the practice crash that put him in the hospital last year, but he has watched the video.
"You watch it, and it’s like, ‘Holy cow, that guy, he’s in a rough place right there. Oh, wait, that’s me,’â " LaVallee said.
He’s also figured out what went wrong and thinks he’s corrected the problem for the upcoming jump. In mid-air, LaVallee controls the pitch of the flying snowmobile with the brakes and throttle.
The snowmobile’s rotating track acts like a gyroscope, and if LaVallee hits the accelerator, the nose of the machine will go up. If he hits the brake, the nose will dip down. During the crash, the carburetor glitch sent him diving into the ground nose first.
The solution this year: a custom-built Polaris snowmobile with a fuel-injected motor.
LaVallee also has been working with a brain training company called Neurotopia to help him with mental focus.
"The very first time hitting the ramp again, I was a little nervous," he said.
In Longville, where people wear Levi LaVallee shirts and the town once had a Levi LaVallee Day, lots of people will be watching the New Year’s Eve jump on television, said Mayor Jocko Kline.
But LaVallee’s parents and sister will be San Diego to see the event in person.
LaVallee’s mother, Debbie LaVallee, said she’s "totally nervous."
"When he falls out of the sky, I’m a little bit uncomfortable with that," she said.
