Snowmobile Racing

A snowmobile, also known as a Ski-Doo, snowmachine, sled, motor sled, motor sledge, skimobile, or snow scooter, is a motorized vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. It is designed to be operated on snow and ice and does not require a road or trail, but most are driven on open terrain or trails. Snowmobiling is a sport that many people have taken on as a serious hobby.

Older snowmobiles could generally accommodate two people; however, most snowmobiles manufactured since the 1990s have been designed to only accommodate one person. Snowmobiles built with the ability to accommodate two people are referred to as "2-up" snowmobiles or "touring" models and make up an extremely small share of the market. Most snowmobiles do not have any enclosures, except for a windshield, and their engines normally drive a continuous track at the rear. Skis at the front provide directional control.

Early snowmobiles used simple rubber tracks, but modern snowmobiles' tracks are usually made of a Kevlar composite construction. The earliest snowmobiles were powered by readily available industrial four-stroke, air-cooled engines. These would quickly be replaced by lighter and more powerful two-stroke gasoline internal combustion engines and since the mid-2000s four-stroke engines had re-entered the market.

The second half of the 20th century saw the rise of recreational snowmobiling, whose riders are called ''snowmobilers'', ''sledders'', or ''slednecks''. Recreational riding is known as snowcross/racing, trail riding, freestyle, boondocking, ditchbanging and grass drags. In the summertime snowmobilers can drag race on grass, asphalt strips, or even across water (''see Snowmobile skipping''). Snowmobiles are sometimes modified to compete in long-distance off-road races.

Legality

Depending on jurisdiction, there may be penalties for driving outside permitted areas, without an approved helmet, without a driver's license, with an unregistered snowmobile, or while under the influence of alcohol or other substances. There may also be regulations regarding noise and wildlife.

Driver's license

In some jurisdictions, a driver's license is required to operate a snowmobile. A specific snowmobile driver's license is required in, for example, Norway and Sweden. In Finland, a snowmobile driver's license is not required if the driver already has another type of appropriate driver's license (for example car or tractor).

Early history

In 1911 a 24 year old, Harold J. Kalenze (pronounced Collins), patented the Vehicle Propeller in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada.

In 1915 Ray H. Muscott of Waters, Michigan, received the Canadian patent for his motor sleigh, or "traineau automobile", and on June 27, 1916, he received the first United States patent for a snow-vehicle using the now recognized format of rear track(s) and front skis. Many individuals later modified Ford Model Ts with the undercarriage replaced by tracks and skis following this design. They were popular for rural mail delivery for a time. The common name for these conversion of cars and small trucks was Snowflyers.

Ossipee, New Hampshire claims to be the home of the first snowmobile. In 1917, Virgil D. White set up to create a patent for his conversion kit that changed the Ford Model T into a "snowmobile". He also copyrighted the term "snowmobile". At the time, the conversion kit was expensive, costing about $395. Virgil White applied his patent in 1918 and created his own snowmobile. In 1922, his conversion kit was on the markets and available only through Ford dealerships.

In 1935 Joseph Bombardier assembled and successfully tested the first snowmobile. It was a vehicle with a sprocket wheel and a track drive system, and it was steered by skis.

The challenges of cross-country transportation in the winter led to the invention of the snowmobile, an all-terrain vehicle specifically designed for travel across deep snow where other vehicles foundered. During the 20th century, rapidly evolving designs produced machines that were two-person tracked vehicles powered by gas engines that enabled them to tow a sled or travel, initially at low-to-moderate speeds, depending on snow conditions, terrain and obstacles protruding above the snow like brush and trees. Where early designs had two-stroke engines, there has been a move toward newer style two and four-stroke gasoline engines, some with over .

Multi-passenger snowmobiles

The origin of the snowmobile is not the work of any one inventor but more a process of advances in engines for the propulsion of vehicles and supporting devices over snow. It parallels the development of the automobile and later aviation, often inventors using the same components for a different use.

Wisconsinites experimented with over-snow vehicles before 1900, experimenting with bicycles equipped with runners and gripping fins; steam-propelled sleighs; and (later) Model T Fords converted with rear tractor treads and skis in front. A patent (554.482) for the Sled-Propeller design, without a model, was submitted on Sept. 5, 1895 by inventors William J. Culman and William B. Follis of Brule, Wisconsin. In the first races held near Three Lakes in 1926, 104 of these "snowbuggies" started. Carl Eliason of Sayner developed the prototype of the modern snowmobile in the 1920s when he mounted a two-cylinder motorcycle engine on a long sled, steered it with skis under the front, and propelled it with single, endless track. Eliason made 40 snowmobiles, patented in 1927. Upon receiving an order for 200 from Finland, he sold his patent to the FWD Company of Clintonville. They made 300 for military use, then transferred the patent to a Canadian subsidiary.

The American Motor Sleigh was a short-lived novelty vehicle produced in Boston in 1905. Designed for travel on snow, it consisted of a sleigh body mounted on a framework that held an engine, a drive-shaft system, and runners. Although considered an interesting novelty, sales were low and production ceased in 1906.

The Aerosani, propeller-driven and running on skis, was built in 1909–1910 by Russian inventor Igor Sikorsky of helicopter fame. Aerosanis were used by the Soviet Red Army during the Winter War and World War II. There is some dispute over whether Aerosanis count as snowmobiles because they were not propelled by tracks.

Adolphe Kégresse designed an original caterpillar tracks system, called the Kégresse track, while working for Tsar Nicholas II of Russia between 1906 and 1916. These used a flexible belt rather than interlocking metal segments and could be fitted to a conventional car or truck to turn it into a half-track, suitable for use over soft ground, including snow. Conventional front wheels and steering were used but the wheel could be fitted with skis as seen in the upper right image. He applied it to several cars in the Royal garage including Rolls-Royce cars and Packard trucks. Although this was not a snowmobile, it is an ancestor of the modern concept.

The relatively dry snow conditions of the United States Midwest suited the converted Ford Model Ts and other like vehicles, but they were not suitable for humid snow areas such as southern Quebec and New England. This led Joseph-Armand Bombardier from the small town of Valcourt, Quebec, to invent a different caterpillar track system suitable for all kinds of snow conditions. Bombardier had already made some "metal" tracked vehicles since 1928, but his new revolutionary track traction system (a toothed wheel covered in rubber, and a rubber-and-cotton track that wraps around the back wheels) was his first major invention. He started production of the B-7, an enclosed, seven-passenger snowmobile, in 1937, and introduced the B-12, a twelve-passenger model, in 1942. The B-7 had a V-8 flathead engine from Ford Motor Company. The B-12 had a flathead in line six-cylinder engine from Chrysler industrial, and 2,817 units were produced until 1951. It was used in many applications, such as ambulances, Canada Post vehicles, winter "school buses", forestry machines, and even army vehicles in World War II. Bombardier had always dreamed of a smaller version, more like the size of a motor scooter.

Brands

Early models

Numerous people had ideas for a smaller personal snowmobile. In 1914, O. M. Erickson and Art Olsen of the P.N. Bushnell company in Aberdeen, South Dakota, built an open two-seater "motor-bob" out of an Indian motorcycle

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