Watercross: Racing snowmobiles on water

[heavy rock music]

Rachel O’Brien:
I was mesmerized, was my first feeling of it. It was so cool.

Kim Hallberg:
They think it’s jet skis on water, and I oftentimes am like, “No, it’s actually snowmobiles.”

Rachel O’Brien:
So watercross snowmobiling is actually exactly what it sounds like. It is a snowmobile that we make slight modifications to. We have two categories. You can actually be an open mod, which, that’s kind of sky’s the limit. Or you can be a stock, which is very few modifications. And we make them for water, and we’re a race association that you actually race them on water.

These really, really heavy machines actually become extremely light, and they carve a lot, like you would be riding in the mountains, actually, is how a lot of people describe it.

[snowmobiles revving]

Rachel O’Brien:
Watercross was formed in 1977, and it just started with a bunch of snowmobile riders jumping waves across the lake, and in the winter, they had a hole, I guess, in the lake, and they would just go across. And then they thought, “Hey, we can do this all year.” And badabing, badaboom.

[snowmobiles revving]

Rachel O’Brien:
A normal race for us is, we have qualifying heats on Saturday, so every driver per class gets three guaranteed heats that they’re going to race. If you have a race where you get a first place, that’s worth one point. Second place, two points, so on and so forth. And then, what you want is the lowest amount of points for the day.

Our course consists of two different types of laps. There’s the inside lane, and then there’s one we like to call the equalizer lane, or most of us call it the EQ. You have to take the EQ at one point in your race for a lap. The selection is entirely up to you. It’s actually very strategical when you take that EQ lap because it is a very, very wide lap. That can be very detrimental to your race if you pick to go out to that at the wrong time. Otherwise, it’s always guard the front and look for clean water.

[snowmobiles revving]

These sleds are really easily going 70 now, very, very easily in a very short, y’know, 1,000 feet, very short amount of time. I would say consistently, our pros are probably in the 50s, 55 range in the oval course just because of the buoy to buoy action, and you wanna stay tight and not blow it. People will actually tell you too, they don’t care who they’re racing. They’re just gonna go out and get in front and try to beat everyone.

This year, we’re doing our first annual big jump contest. And what that’s gonna be is into three categories, we’re gonna have the crowd favorite, which, y’know, our guys, they’re into it, they’re excited, like to dress up. We have a time trial. Now, that is, they get two minutes on the clock, and they have to make as many jumps as they can in two minutes. And then we also have furthest distance. So, how far can they send the sled off of the jump going, so that’s gonna be really exciting. We did clarify to each driver that it was how far the sled went, not necessarily the body.

Kim Hallberg:
The races are amazing. We couldn’t have a more gracious, genuine group of racers, who, they love to see the kids involved, they love to sign autographs.

Rachel O’Brien:
It brings together us with family, community, friends with an abnormal sport, so it’s just a great weekend overall.

Kim Hallberg:
This is probably the most Wisconsin thing you can find.

[heavy rock music]