MEDWAY, Maine — The East Branch Sno-Rovers Club’s new affiliation with a North American professional snowmobile racing association will draw twice as many racers and thousands more spectators to the club’s ice track, members said Thursday.
Though the snowmobile drag-racing season is months away, club volunteers and an Emery Lee & Son Inc. crew were working Thursday to add 500 feet to the track’s length and make it flatter and more watertight in anticipation of hosting at least one International Snowmobile Racing Association event during the winter, said Jim Stanley, the club’s volunteer race director.
Since early September, members have been working to double the track’s spectator area, substantially in-crease parking, add a second bay to their parking garage for a new ice resurfacer, and put on a new 14-by-28-foot addition to the club’s kitchen because ISRA has already committed to hosting a regional championship at the club.
“This will be a major event that will pull all the big racing teams from all over northeastern America, Canada and New York,” club member Brian Wiley said. “We could see thousands of people coming in here on weekends, and anytime you can draw a major event like this to Medway and the Katahdin region, you’re doing a good thing.”
Located at the clubhouse on Hathaway Road, about a mile from the East Millinocket line, the track was the only one in Maine not built on a waterway when it debuted as a 2,300-foot drag track last January. An estimated 1,700 spectators and 183 racers participated in that two-day event, which heralded the inaugural season of the Maine Snowmobile Drag Racing Association. Several other races followed.
The ISRA affiliation, organizers said, is the next logical step in their quest to turn the track into New Eng-land’s premier snowmobile drag-racing center, which will likely lead to the club’s hosting summer snowmobile drag-racing on grass, club member Brian Wiley said.
The Katahdin Area Recovery and Expansion, or KARE, committee will pay for most of the upgrade with a $20,200 grant it voted unanimously to give to the club earlier this month, said Kathy Lee, the committee’s secretary and the town’s administrative assistant.
KARE helped pay for the bleachers, race computers and other track components with an $18,000 grant last year.
By supporting the track’s expansion, KARE committee members were investing in an increase in the track’s ability to draw tourists, money and acclaim to the Katahdin region, which is already recognized internationally for its snowmobile trails, said Jeff Jandreau, a member of the town’s Board of Selectmen.
“I do know that it was a huge success last year,” Jandreau said.
The club’s volunteer effort “just shows how hardworking the people of the Katahdin region are,” Jandreau said. “We lost one of our manufacturing mills a few years ago, so they are looking in another direction on how to bring money into this area.”
“The area has a lot to offer,” he added. “This is just another catalyst to bring that [money] into this area and help the Katahdin region.”
This year’s ice track expansion follows Millinocket’s Northern Timber Cruisers Club’s creation of a truck and tractor pull track at Millinocket Regional Airport. That venue’s inaugural event drew at least 3,000 spectators late last month — so many that club members opted to pay off the track, give back some money to contractors who had initially volunteered, and still show a profit.
The Timber Cruisers are also working to build the region’s first ATV trail network, which will connect to statewide ATV trails and open yet another recreation-based revenue stream for the region. That trail is due to open in 2012.