THIEF RIVER FALLS TRIP REPORT – WHAT’S ON THE LINE AND IN THE RACE SHOP?

I drove north to TRF through, at times, near white-out conditions from St. Cloud to Detroit Lakes. By the time I reached TRF, the snow had already passed through and was clear and beautiful.

The ditches were filling in nicely waiting for that first groomer pass.

A month or two since my last visit, Arctic Cat has now nearly completed a new renovation of the front entryway which is bright and welcoming, as are the friendly faces.

Some, if not all, of these historical snowmobiles had been on display with-in the manufacturing facility. I was happy to see they were on display in the main lobby for all to look at.

Speaking of friendly faces, I stopped to say Hi to Matt Bjerklie (L) who was prepping 2023 snowmobiles for a photoshoot, which Calli (R) will be part of as the Marketing Lead for Snow. (FYI – the rear tunnel section poking out in lower right corner of photo is a 2022 R-XC)

It was thumbs-up on the line for Kim Broten (L), and Im an ass for not asking her name on the (R). Sorry.

The 2022 Blast ZR was on the line and being finished up.

SIDENOTE: Speaking of Blasts…on my way to TRF, Tom at Thomas Sno Sports sent me a photo and let me know my Snowmageddon order Blast XR Touring arrived. What a surprise! I was anticipating a mid-January build date.

I met up with Ben Langaas (High Performance Engineering team) at the Black Cat. He was thoughtful and brought a new poster for my office and signed it. Thanks Ben!

If you visit Thief River, the Black Cat is a must-stop to take in all the Arctic Cat memorabilia and grab a great burger. Pictured above is Al, who owns the restaurant, and shared his plans to create table lighting from vintage Arctic Cat helmets he’s collected. I look forward to seeing those!

Looking through my photos, I regret not getting one of Team Arctic race manager, Mike Kloety, but he was kind enough to update me on Team Arctic racing, and was preparing for the first COR Powersports race of the cross-country season. Inside the shop, were a few of HC Racing’s ZR mods including those from Zach Herfindahl and David Brown.

If I remember correctly, Mike told me this is going to be Zach’s 2022 terrain race sled, but they had set it up for lake racing to baseline calibrations.

Last week I showed a couple eye candy photos of Zach’s new mod. It is quite stunning in person and attention to detail is pretty fantastic.

Some of those attention to detail pieces from HC Racing (Hector and Corey) that interest me, are simple things like this throttle cable holder fashioned from a zip tie and piece of fuel line. Brilliant!

I always enjoy seeing hand scribed notes on race parts…this particular one referenced the Rebound and High/Low compression settings on the FOX Shocks of David Brown’s ZR6000R-XC.

On my way home, I went to Gonvick and stopped at Pine Lake where I met up again with Ben Langaas and a few other Team Arctic cross-country racers, as they were test/tuning for the first COR Powersports race of the season January 1-2. Ill share more of those photos/videos in a part II of this trip. If you are looking to ride, the snow looked fantastic in the Leonard to Bemidji areas, and groomers had visibly been out in certain portions.