It’s Mountain-Cross! If you’ve never seen it, It’s a must see, rocking good time. Snowmobile drag racing under the lights, up a ski hill.
The beauty of a star lit winter sky, a beautiful ski hill under the lights, the camaraderie and energy of fellow snowmobilers and the sights, sounds and smells of competition. What’s not to like about an event like that?
I have often said that life begins below 0F. At the kickoff event of the 2014 Mountain-Cross season at Val Neigette in Rimouski Quebec, my first Mountain-Cross fun began at -25C .
On Saturday December 14th I had the pleasure of joining the race team of our SledMagazine.com Chief Columnist Philippe Soucy and the Sport Collette Rive Sud, 509, CVTech Arctic Cat. We arrived at Val Neigette at 3:30pm with plenty of time to register and tech before the 7pm start time. Plenty of time to get our faces and fingers acclimated to the winter fun of the first big cold blast of the season.
Over 55 racers registered for classes ranging from Stock to Open Mod, many competing in multiple classes. All of the sleds in competition were fast, many were very fast and several were absolute rockets with trenching traction the whole way up the mountain.
Hundreds of spectators braved the continually dropping temperatures to witness all the action which lasted well past midnight. Hundreds more enjoyed exciting views of the competition from the comfort and party of the Val Neigette lodge.
On this first night the competition was limited to 2 lanes versus the series’ typical 3 wide format. I was totally impressed by 2 lanes of action and can only imagine the sights and sounds of triple traction.
What an awesome collaboration between Ski areas and event promoters “ les evenements Mountain-Cross”. I’ve never heard of this type of competition in the Northeastern states, which is unfortunate. Mountain Cross is a unique and exciting which exposes new people to our sport and opens up a whole new “after hours” entertainment opportunity to many Ski areas. Mountain Cross, Oh yeah!
For complete information on the tour, upcoming events and more, visit mountain-cross.ca
