Popular Snocross Racer Levi Lavallee Ready To Jump Again
by Scott A. Sumner
Last year snocross favourite Levi Lavallee was focused on jumping over 300 feet across open water near San Diego California to set a new world record. The event to be held on New Years Eve was known as the Red Bull No Limits New Years Eve. Levi accomplished a record jump of 361 feet last year for a new world record but unfortunately crashed during the attempt. This year he is back at it again for a second attempt, this time landing his Polaris snowmobile on its skis and track.
What happened last year Levi during your jump?
Last year I started off practicing for a distance jump for the Red Bull New Years No Limits. The last practice jump I had a carburetion problem when the sled cut out in the air. You use the gas and brake to adjust the sled during a jump so it isn’t good. It continued on into an endo and when it continued onto the landing there is no way I was gong to ride this one out so I jumped off. I spent a week in the hospital with both collapsed lungs, fractures to my ribs, pelvis and some vertebrae. In reality I came out of that pretty good as it was pretty big crash and could have been worse.
How are you going to fix that problem for this year?
This year we are going to use an 800 mod fuel injected engine from Polaris who have been great. They put a lot of time into it. We now have a little more speed as well. Hopefully we have eliminated the problem we had last year because I don’t know how many more of those crashes I can take.
We have the world record of 361 feet but will be doing it again this year. It will be even cooler this year as Robbie Madison, a champion dirt bike rider will be jumping side by side with me and the goal is to get us both breaking world records. I feel confident as we have the best crew available and the best equipment so it is all up to me.
Will you be racing the full ISOC Snocross season this year?
I will be racing here at Duluth but maybe not as hard as I usually am because of the lack of preparation in snocross. My main goal is to make it through the first two races of the season healthy and get to the jump. I will be doing two weeks of testing in California right after Duluth. I am looking forward to focusing on snocross. I had previously blew my heal out and had surgery two summers in a row and my foot wasn’t up to 100% so missing the whole snocross season last year allowed me to heal up 100%.
We also have Bobby Lepage on board. He has been a little banged up in off-season so may not be able to race the first two races. We also have Jake Scott in Pro Lites.
This year there will be no Snocross event at the X Games. How do you
feel about that?
It is crazy not having Snocross at X games. It was what broke snowmobiles into the X Games so it is unfortunate. We have definitely taken a big hit. I can kind of understand where it is coming from as they lost some sponsors and hey are trying to take the overall TV package down a little bit. The snocross course takes a little more effort to build than the free style stuff as well. Perhaps in the future it may comeback. We are praying that it will comeback. I will
be doing freestyle at the X games for best trick and freestyle.
This season in ISOC racing there will be no Pro Stock class as in the past. How does that affect your team?
Another big change is being on all mods for snocross. It is kind of a neat concept because it is similar to motocross where you have 250 and 450 classes. The semi pro is now pro litee. It will be easier for the fans to understand it. I think most everyone enjoys riding the mod sled as compared to a stock sled. I think it is good for the sport to keep the semi pro guys on stock sleds which will make it cheaper for the up and coming guy. We now have more cost as a team because we have to have 4 mod sleds per weekend as we have 2 pro riders. Fortunately most pro teams have good sponsors so it works out well. The biggest thing is to keep the sport reasonably priced. For a while sport riders were showing up in these big semi haulers. When we were coming up we had a small trailer.
You have been successful in bringing in some new sponsors to your team?
This year we acquired a title sponsor with Mystic Lubricants, which has been awesome. Lock tite has stepped up their program with us quite a bit as well and Polaris has been awesome from day 1. We got a new rig this year, added a new rider and things are going really well.
It will be fun to watch Levi go for the world record jump this New Years eve in California. Lets hope for a safe jump for this talented racer from Minnesota.
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