The Coldest and Crudest

Snowmobiling is snowballing. In the past five years, sales of the low-slung motor-driven ski scooters (price range: $595 to $1,500) have leaped from 15,000 to 225,000 annually. This season, more than 1,000 snowmobile races and ral lies are being held in the northern U.S., featuring such varied events as the sla lom, jumping and drag racing. Though many of the competitions like to bill themselves as the "largest," "richest," "most unique" or simply "world's foremost," Alaska's annual Midnight Sun 600 Snowmobile Race is indisputably the world's coldest and crudest.

Without Comfort. In the 1969 contest, 309 hardy snowcatters plowed out of Anchorage on the first leg of a threeday, 600-mile trek to Fairbanks. Propelled by tanklike treads and steered by handlebars attached to a pair of front-running skis, most of the 20 makes of snowmobiles in the race were capable of powering through the snow at 80 m.p.h. on a straightaway. The course, however, spiraled up and around the rugged peaks of the Alaska Range at elevations of 3,300 ft. or more. Bone-chilling winds gusted to 70 m.p.h., and the snowmobilers became more concerned with survival than speed. Worse yet, the winds screaming down from the Matanuska Glacier swept the snow cover off long stretches of the road ways, and the gravelly pavement destroyed many of the steel skis. Repairs were all but impossible in the sub-zero weather, since the flesh of the snowmobilers' hands tended to freeze to the metal of their machines. Several snow mobiles were blown off the road and down steep embankments. One competitor suffered a broken pelvis when he lost control and veered into a bridge abutment. Frostbite claimed dozens more. By the end of the first day the field had been reduced to 81.

There was no way to find comfort. Liquor was out, since one nip of frigid high-proof alcohol although still liquid would freeze the mouth and throat and cause almost instant death. Swaddled in layer upon layer of goosedown and fur, the snowmobilers looked as bulky as brown bears. One driver rigged his wife's electric hair dryer into his helmet and face mask for added warmth. But nothing seemed to help much. On the second day the temperature dropped to 70DEG below zero. As the snowmobilers plowed ahead through Moose Creek and the village of North Pole, the freezing exhaust of their engines created a tunnel of ice fog. Visibility was reduced to less than 50 ft.

Lost Winners. Tony Burkel, a 41-year-old turkey rancher from Greenbush, Minn., and a professional driver for the U.S.'s Polaris Industries Inc., which makes the Polaris snowmobile, was among the first drivers to arrive in Fairbanks, but he got lost in the dense ice fog. Officials at the finish line, who could hear his machine growling aimlessly around the side streets, finally sent out a runner to try to guide him home with a flare. Another contestant gone astray startled onlookers by barreling across the finish line from the opposite direction.

In all, only 13 of the 309 drivers finished the race. Burkel, his face and neck covered with red blotches of frostbite, won the overall title and $3,000 of the total $20,000 in prize money with a time of 17 hrs. 46 min. and 36 sec. His reaction to the race was the understatement of the week: "This weather you have here is something else."

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