Jackson Hole Underground

Controversy erupted at the 33rd World Championship Snowmobile Hill Climb late Thursday as event organizers were ambushed by last-minute entries of hybrid snowmobiles.

The four-woman team from California-Amazon Technical School, calling themselves “Team Al Gore Rhythm,” arrived unannounced in a Toyota Prius towing two experimental sleds which they claimed burned an alternative fuel.

Jennifer Flynn, the team captain, said, “We’ve been working on a recyclables-based technology we call pre-apocalyptic craptacular fusion. Using a mixture of sea water, pulverized No. 1 plastic and shredded coated-print stock — we use Victoria’s Secret catalogs because we love the irony — we have created a 55-pound engine that delivers nearly pure energy. The gimbal-mounted flywheel acts as a gyroscopic stabilizer, too.”

Team member Heather Fleck claimed, “Jennifer and Heather Flannery did the engine. I did the transmission and Jen did the chassis. I just reversed-engineered and scaled down a six-speed 68RFE tranny. I pulled it out of my boyfriend’s Dodge Cummins 3500 one night. Beautiful hydraulics.”

The women claim that their sleds weigh just under 300 pounds and “put 130-140 ponies to the snow.” Jennifer “Jen” Flanagan claimed that the chassis she designed is mostly carbon fiber “from bicycles we bought on eBay.”

Flanagan further claimed, “Thanks to Heather’s tranny, plus that nifty transfer box she whipped up at the last minute, we keep a steady flow of power to the track. By the way, just for the fun of it I made a tread from superheated and re-demolecularized No. 2 plastic.

“It’s gnarly — toothy and sticky on hard-pack” Flanagan claimed on. “This machine rocks. Just before we came out here I got the ’bile straight up the side of Sather Tower at Berkeley. Might be the first.”

Chomps Ruskin, entry czar for the Jackson Hole Snow Devils, said the intrusion of “radical, liberal sleds” was unexpected and uncalled for.

Ruskin, thumbing through the rulebook, said the prototype sleds did not meet minimal technical requirements. “First, the sleds emit water vapor. That sounds non-toxic to me. It clearly states here that any machine that will not sicken babies and senior citizens within 10 minutes of exposure shall not pass inspection. Plus, the machines don’t pass the decibel meter test. They’re barely louder than normal conversation.

“There’s also the MGCITP [minimum gasoline consumption in-transit protocol],” Ruskin added. “Every contestant must supply receipts proving that they did not exceed 11 miles per gallon while driving to Jackson Hole. These gals, all four of them in one Prius. And their trailer, suspended from helium balloons. It’ll take a lot of side trips in my Suburban to burn the gas they didn’t.

“Finally,” said an exasperated Ruskin, “These four women showed up to the sign-up table visibly sober. Evidently they drove all the way from California like that, even through Nevada. We will not have our traditions mocked.”
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In case you missed last year’s ode to the Hill Climb:

• global warmers to compete in snowmobile mud climb (March 21, 2007)

This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 8:34 am and is filed under environment, snowmobiles, humor, snow king, snimp. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.