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In recent years, I've becoming much more of a fan of extreme sports than mainstream sports. For example, motocross, Supercross, snowboarding, and X-Games style in-line skating are all sports that I would make a point of watching on TV. These sports are fun and exciting, there's lots of action, always the chance of a major crash, and the athletes are not your run-of-the-mill corporate spokesperson types.

Now I can add snocross to my list of new favorite sports. Snocross is basically snowmobile racing that takes place on a motocross style track. That means there are jumps, whoops, and tight turns for the riders to navigate around on each and every lap. Weather conditions also come into play quite often, so you just never know what's going to happen out on the track.

I recently had a chance to attend my first snocross race in person, and I was amazed at how much fun these events are. I want to say for the record that I am not a participant of any winter sports at all. I pretty much hate being out in the cold, so I didn't know how well I would be able to handle standing around for several hours in the snow and wind while watching a snocross race.

After putting on nearly every piece of clothing I own in an effort to stave off the elements, I headed out with my friends to a place called Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Mn. We would apparently be watching a few races that are part of the PowerSports Snowmobile Tour, which the promoters tout as the "greatest show on snow". I guess there's an entire series that runs throughout the winter, and these races would help (at least in part) to determine the series champion.

I guess I should say now that I had never followed snocross before I attended that race, and I still don't follow it all that much now. So bear that in mind if I happen to get a few terms wrong, mix up a few names, or leave out a few important facts regarding the series as a whole.

Anyway, before the racing started, I had an opportunity to walk through the pits and look at some of the sleds up close. Those machines looked really cool, and are definitely not what the average person could get from the neighborhood store. I also saw several of the racers up close, but since I had no idea who they were, those encounters didn't really do much for me. I do have to say, though, that lots of other fans were clamoring for autographs, so I'm sure those guys are a big deal to real snocross enthusiasts.

I had some fears that since I have never been on a snowmobile myself, I wouldn't really be able to enjoy and/or appreciate the racing. I am happy to say that that wasn't the case at all!  I loved it, and I am officially hooked.

First of all, the track was much shorter than I expected. Although I didn't have a stopwatch with me, it felt like the lap times were in the 45-second range. That's actually a good thing from a fan's perspective because it meant we didn't have to wait very long for the action to come back around to our part of the track again.
One thing I never would have thought of in terms of snocross racing is how poor the visibility must be for the racers at times. When you've got that many sleds going full throttle through powdery snow, the traffic inevitably kicks up quite a cloud of snow and ice. I couldn't see the riders through it from my vantage point in the stands, and I'm pretty sure the riders couldn't see very much either. And yet they never backed off the gas, but just kept going full speed ahead. Needless to say, I saw a couple of wipeouts on the day!

It turned out that someone named Ross Martin won. Whether that's important or not, I can't really say. It wasn't to me on that day. What was more important was how much I enjoyed attending a snocross race for the first time in my life. Being there and seeing all the action really made me want to try riding a snowmobile. That's some pretty successful series marketing, if you ask me!