Whether you are a parapsychologist fighting 85 foot marshmallows, a groundskeeper fighting gophers, the leader of 3 babes who like to kick evil-doer ass, a 20 something looking for a new life in the Army, or a TV weatherman, there is probably something you can learn from Bill Murray.

Now I have never been to Punxsutawney, nor have I ever had the joy of seeing the shadow of a groundhog in real life on February 2nd.  But I damn sure have felt the feeling that I have been living the same day over and over again. 

Case in point--our entire race season.  Ok, maybe that would take too long to talk about.  Instead lets just stick to some quick excerpts of what I know I’ve done before, and then I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing to avoid this from happening again.

1. 1) I remember driving to a town in the middle of Minnesota to meet the Wahl’s on a frozen lake so we could race each other.  How many times have we done that??  Who knows.  But every time feels the same.
   

2. 2)I remember crushing a stinger at Beausejour which took us out of contention
   

3. 3)I remember that after Beausejour we swore we would never let our stingers hang so far out of the chassis again.
   

4. 4)I remember crushing a stinger in Beausejour which took us out of contention.
   

5. 5)I remember that after Beausejour we swore we would never let our stingers hang so far out of the chassis again.
   

6. 6)I vividly remember crushing a stinger in Garrison which took us out of contention.
   

7. 7)I instantly recall having many conversations and even typing a post for my website swearing that we will never let our stingers hang so far out of the chassis again.
   

So then, maybe you get the point.  That for all of our “resolve” to change things, sometimes its just easier to stick with the status quo and roll on.  But I say no more (again) !  I think that maybe, just maybe I have the “resolve” to put up a serious fight against a very serious foe.

You see, when battling the rodents you have to fight fire with fire.  And when they show up with a gun you better not bring a knife!  That is why I decided even before we got to Garrison that I was going to try to do somethings different.  For one, much earlier in the year I decided that I am not going to leave the Goose when I am still having a good time simply because I was staying at a motel a few miles away.  So I got us rooms right at the track.  Thats one bonus point for this guy!  Following that victory over Punxsutawney Phil  I decided that if the forecast called for temperatures anywhere near 20 below zero I simply wasn’t going to that particular race.  Well this year the temps were mild so I avoided a repeat of last year.  Thats 2 for me and 0 for the hog!  Finally relating to racing itself now, we decided as a team that we were not going to race for 2nd no matter what.  Well--round 3 of the fight didn’t go my way, since we ended up with 2 second place finishes despite having what was clearly the fastest champ sled out there all weekend.  Damnit!

So what did I learn from my enemy?  Well for sure I learner that I damn well better see to it that our stingers are tucked further inside our chassis to avoid crushing them like we did (again) in Garrison’s Champ 440 final.  But I also learned that in order to avoid making the same mistakes you have to try different things. On the “racing” side you can’t be afraid to make some seriously weird changes to your sled just to avoid being a casualty in this war.  We made some strange changes and learned a lot about our sled--both in terms of what works and what doesn’t.  On the “social” side I learned that the crowd at the WSA Races are no different than myself.  We love snowmobiles, we love racing, we love competition of any kind, and we love to have a great time.  It’s these things (plus a bunch of others that I can’t get into without typing to much and getting too lame) that make us all such a family. 

We are a family of racers, teammates, and promoters that are intensely passionate about everything we do.  We are a group of out-of-towners who only meet in the winter on frozen water in Minnesota to see who is fastest.  We are a group that all fight a common enemy when we do things the same way all the time.  Yet we are a extremely optimistic and energetic group who simply can’t be beat at whatever game we play.  No matter how the results shake out we will be back--week after week--year after year, and we will always have the best of times because as a group, there simply isn’t a better one out there.  Hell--we are so interesting that maybe Bill Murray ought to think about doing a movie about us!

In closing then, be sure to have a great weekend and we’ll see you all in Forest Lake, MN for some of the best snowmobile racing we’ve seen all year!  Just know that its our turn to kick the groundhog out of its bunker!!