shane felegy

Whose Champ Is This?

Whose radical new Champ 440 sled is this? It belongs to none other than Shane Felegy. While Felegy has been absent from the Champ ranks for over a year, he’s been testing with his cousin Joey Fjerstad and racing enduros such as the Soo I-500, so he’s certainly not lacking seat time. This latest Champ chassis has been two years in the making and will showcase some new concepts with its build.

“We were supposed to race this sled last season but it wasn’t ready,” said Shane. “We could have rushed it and got it on the ice but we’ve done that too many times and it’s come back to bite us, so we decided to wait and do it right.”

Rick Bates designed and built the sled specifically for Shane and his riding style. It features a chrome moly tube chassis, custom hand-built tunnel, inboard shocks and a centered drive train, which Felegy prefers over the more popular offset designs. Randy from Walker Evans is custom-building all the shocks and will dial in the calibration for the sled. Of course it will be powered by a Felegy Racing engine built by Shane’s dad, Rich Felegy. While he has some new support in the works, Felegy’s main sponsor is Aggressive Hydraulics.

“Paul Johnson at Aggressive Hydraulics has stuck by me through all this and that means a lot,” Shane said. “He wants to win as bad as I do and his support is critical to making it happen.”

Aggressive Hydraulics also sponsors Craig Dollansky on the World Of Outlaws series and NASCAR driver Ryan Newman.

Some of Felegy’s other sponsors include Woody’s, Apparelfreaks, sledRacer.com and Kirk Zack at HMK.

Filed Under: SledRacer Features Tagged With: Aggressive Hydraulics, champ 440, Eagle River World Championship, felegy racing, ice oval, polaris, rick bates, shane felegy, snocross, snowmobile, snowmobile news, snowmobile racing, snowmobile racing news

News Rumors And Things To Think About 2.0

The Vet 30+ class at the ISOC Nationals is set to explode during the next few seasons. The class already boasts names such as Reimer, Tate, Schultz and Bauerly and this season T.J. Gulla and Robbie Malinoski are eligible to race it. Hard to believe, but next year Levi LaVallee will be eligible too.

Kody Kamm

Kody Kamm finished 29th in the 250 class at the Red Bud National in Buchanan, Michigan, this past July 2. The 17-year-old Polaris racer from Kenosha, Wisconsin, rides a Yamaha YZ250F and finished 24th and 28th in his two motos.

If you haven’t heard, Logan Christian messed up his knee racing the Canadian Nationals. He should be back ready to race Duluth.

Despite our predictions of a new buggy, sources are telling us Polaris does not have a new race chassis coming for the 2012 season. It’s amazing – they’re going on seven seasons with that buggy in an era when three years is a lifetime. We’ll predict a new chassis again next year because one of these years we’ll be right and then we’ll look like geniuses.

We got the scoop on the whole Jeff Goodwin deal. Goodwin and BRP parted ways back in May, leaving Marcel Imbault as interim Race Manager. We don’t want to air too much dirty laundry, all we’ll say is Goodwin was let go, he did not quit.

More on race sleds – Ski-Doo’s racer should be very similar to last years. Also, some may remember sledRacer revealed Cat would have a new race buggy based on the ProCross chassis. They were testing the sled at Ski Gull in Brainerd last Spring and out West this summer. While we’re still sure the sled will use the ProCross chassis, we found out that the new racer will look nothing like what the boys were shaking down at Ski Gull.

What will Johan Lidman's buggy look like in 2012?

If they’re not out already (and posted here on sledRacer) two major teams have or will announce big changes to rider and/or brand lineups.

It seems the Soo has been attracting a lot more attention in recent years. With the announcement of P.J. Wanderscheid and Gary Moyle riding for Cadarette Racing, add in guys like Gabe Bunke who will have two sleds again, DL Racing who will have two sleds with Justin Tate and Shane Felegy riding again, Corey Davidson and all the other Soo veterans and it should be one of the strongest fields seen in decades. And let’s not forget, last year Bryan Dyrdahl and D.J. Ekre nearly ran the Soo too. Hmm, 2012 may be a good year to take a little drive up to the UP!

Are you going to Arctic Cat’s 50th Anniversary Celebration at the end of the month? We are. SledRacer will be meetin’ and greetin’ probably on Saturday and I’ll be hangin’ at the USCC rig at some point during the day.

Filed Under: SledRacer Features Tagged With: Arctic Cat, Carlson Motorsports, cross-country, cross-country snowmobile racing, I-500, ISOC, isoc racing, ISOC snocross, Johan Lidman, Justin Tate, Kody Kamm, Levi LaVallee, polaris, Robbie Mallinoski, shane felegy, ski-doo, Ski-Doo race sled, Ski-Doo X Team, snocross, snowmobile, snowmobile news, snowmobile racing, snowmobile racing news, Soo I-500, team arctic

Soo Download

The DL Racing sled gets pushed through the rough stuff late in the day at the Soo.

The DL Racing/Tiede Motorsports team made a great run at winning the Soo I-500 but in the end a broken rod put them out of the race. Team owner Don LaBean isn’t new to the Soo and neither is Rick Tiede, but the team’s riders, Shane Felegy, Justin Tate and Joe Fjerstad were all new to the race. It was a wild week of racing and handling the learning curve the Soo throws at you, but the team came through it well and was competitive until they lost the engine with less than 100 laps to go. We sat down with rider Shane Felegy to get his thoughts on what went down at the race, here’s what he had to say about setups, enduros vs. ovals and if he’s going to come back.

Chasing The Soo

With any luck, this 2011 Polaris IQ600R will be the winning sled at the 2011 Soo I-500.

This season sledRacer.com will be following a bunch of guys as they attempt to win the famed Soo I-500 enduro the first time out. Win the Soo the first time out? Sounds crazy, huh? It does until you see who all is involved. DL Racing and Tiede2 Motorsports have linked up in a concerted effort to try and win the Soo I-500. The effort is the brainchild of Rick Tiede of Woody’s Traction and Don LaBean of Hymmco, a Michigan-based concrete construction accessories company.

“In the last few months we have been hard at work putting together what we will think is the winning combination for this years Soo I-500 race this upcoming February,” said Tiede.

The team has signed three top-level snowmobile racers to pilot the sled at the famed 1-mile Soo oval:

Testing At 20 Below

As testing begins, Shane looks for the gas and brake on his Champ

sledRacer.com hung out with Shane Felegy while he tested his Aggressive Hydraulics-backed Champ sled in Roseau. Seeing as how it was a balmy -20 Fahrenheit some of the fun got sucked out of what’s usually a marginally fun experience to begin with. I mean, testing? C’mon, it’s like work almost. The good thing about testing for ice racing is it’s cheap – all you need is a frozen pond and a plow and you’re good to go. We sat down with Shane in the warm Felegy Racing trailer and got the scoop on his continued pursuit of the elusive Eagle River World Championship.

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Filed Under: Snowmobile racing News Tagged With: champ 440, ice oval, polaris, shane felegy, snowmobile racing