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In an effort to protect our environment from hydrocarbons and harmful exhaust emissions, 22 collegiate teams from across the continent will be filtering into the Keweenaw area over the next few days with snowmobiling on their minds.
The 19th annual Society of Automotive Engineering’s Clean Snowmobile Challenge is set to take place next week.
“The Clean Snowmobile Challenge pioneered a lot of four stroke technology and fuel injection and, in fact, the first machines that were clean and quite were fuel injection. They were made by Arctic Cat,” said SAE International Clean Snowmobile Challenge cofounder Jack Welch.
Today’s snowmobiles are faster, quieter, more efficient, comfortable, and leave less of a carbon footprint on our world then their predecessors, and that is directly related to a gathering that takes place every year right here in the Keweenaw Peninsula.
Michigan Tech is the hosting venue for the competition that nearly two dozen teams have been preparing for all year. “A lot of it has been carried over and fine tuning issues we had from last year and a lot of dye tuning, but pretty much all year we’ve been working on it,” said Rochester Institute of Technology student Jeffrey Phelps.
Students are given targets each year, like a certain decibel level to stay underneath at full throttle, or certain emissions level ceilings to help control pollutants cased by exhaust.
Those teams work on meeting those requirements throughout the year, redesigning thing-a-ma-jiggers and polyzifflecombobulation tubes that the average rider has no clue of its purpose, but these kids understand the inner workings of those parts, and that by making certain adjustments or even major ones that involve redesigning the wheel, or the piston, or engine timing, or fuel temperature, or many other variations, those goals can be achieved.
“Obviously electric snowmobiles have great limitations in distance and weight and so forth, but that was one of the innovative things,” said Welch.
Monday begins the week long event where each team compares the results of their research and development against those standards, and against competing teams who are all reaching for the MacLean-Fogg Cup, a traveling trophy awarded to a first place team- who has created the Clean Snowmobile of the year.
Technical inspections begin Monday morning at 8:00 am at the Keweenaw Research Center, with lab and field testing events to take place throughout the week.
There will be a public display of the sleds on Wednesday at 6:00 pm at the Keweenaw Research Center with a industry networking session to begin two hours prior.
More information and a full schedule of events can be found at www.mtu.edu/snowmobile.
