Northern Power Race Park in Mancelona Michigan kicked off the snocross season in a major way.
By Dominic Santina, Contributing Writer
Northern Power Race Park kicked their snocross season off in a major way. The inaugural Snowcross Border Cup occurred on Saturday, December 8, and Sunday, December 9. Team Canada claimed the cup over Team USA convincingly. Team Canada won by final points total of 3962 to Team USA’s total of 3098. Team Canada will hold the trophy until the teams meet again next December.
Team Canada earned its championships in several different ways. The battle of the Border Cup pitted Michigan’s snocross series against Canada’s. With the Canadian Snowcross Racing Association hosting one of their seasonal points races, all Canadian riders in the series showed up to Mancelona. While Michigan Snocross is the only top series in Michigan, many U.S. riders opt out of the battle to save themselves for the national circuit. This allowed Team Canada a significant advantage in the number of riders racing over Team USA.
While rider turnout helped, Team Canada also had two good days of racing. One of the few divisions in which Team Canada excelled was some of the youth 120s and 200s. Vincenzo Dioro, Jackson Baker and Colter Cody all made significant impacts. Michigan Snocross series riders Jack Gelinas and Dylan Sabourin in the transition classes greatly impacted Team Canada. While they raced in the Michigan series, given they were riders for Canada, they were racing for Team Canada. Gelinas won and finished top-five in his transition classes. While Sabourin earned wins in her transition girls’ finals.
Carter Van Horsigh was chosen as the Most Valuable Rider by MI Snocross Media. He earned a first and second place finish in the Junior 14-17 and Sport finals on both Saturday and Sunday as another contributing factor to Team Canada. Tyler Billings (Pro-Am +30), Shyann Gosselin (Pro-Am Women) also made significant contributions with final wins.
In the pro class, Jake Wier and Taylor McCoy helped cement the Border Cup win by taking both Saturday and Sunday’s final from hometown rider Tyler Archambault.
Team USA
While they did not bring home the big trophy, that still does not mean that some great efforts were not had. Tate McQuestion was the top performer from the youth classes by earning a win on Saturday. Eva Gifford showed some overall improvement and won a couple qualifying rounds in the Junior Girls 9-13 age group.
In the transition classes, local national riders, Charlie Lucas and Ryder Hayes performed well and earned wins in their Junior and Transition classes. In Pro-Am +30, Danny Delecki stole the show from Billings and won the Sunday final. Shade Meyer also earned a big win, as he jumped up divisons to the Pro Lite class and came away with two finals wins to begin his year.
While Archambault, did not earn the wins on either night in the Pro class liked he hoped. He put together two greats rides after dealing with adversity to finish in fourth on Saturday and second on Sunday.
A few other riders found themselves on podiums as well, such as Austin Allen in Sport Lite, Tess Stone in the 200 classes and Jackson Goike in Transition 11-13. However, the greatest race for Team USA came in the Transition 11-13 divison and on Sunday. Where they took the top four spots. The group was led by Lucas, followed by Goike, Hayes and Dominic Munford. A strong showing and a real bright spot in a weekend controlled by Team Canada.
The defeat will have to sit with Team USA until next December and the question will remain, can they get enough of a showing to reclaim the Border Cup?
The event drew many spectators, especially trail riders who stopped in to check out what was going on at NPRP. Overall, the event was a great opportunity for all of the riders to get some time on the snowmobile before the ISOC National series kicked off in Ironwood the next weekend.
The Michigan Snocross series will be busy the rest of the winter, with nine more rounds of snocross left to be contested. The next round of competition will be hosted on Saturday, January 4 and Sunday January 5. The park will also have a ton of other snowmobile events going on throughout the winter and a schedule can be found at Northerpowerracepark.com. •
