Boivin stares down final junior season

FORT FRANCES—Curtis Boivin, the Kitty Cat racing king and 2006 snowmobiling world champion, is just about all grown up.
Sure, Boivin is just 15 years old but with a new snowmobiling season having begun last weekend, the local teen’s final year of junior racing already is underway—with the semi-pro circuit waiting around the corner.
His last chance to stand tall as a junior world champion comes in a matter of weeks at the World Championship Snowmobile Derby in Eagle River, Wis. And Boivin knows exactly what it will take to win.
“It’s hard to win because everyone from all around the world comes to compete,” he noted. “Everyone’s a lot faster, too. All the best competition is in Eagle River.”
Boivin participated in the WSA Xtreme Ice’s season-opener, the Canadian Power Toboggan Championships, in Beausejour Man. over the weekend, coming away with two second-place finishes, a pair of thirds, and a fourth in five races.
Middle-of-the-pack results, and definitely not what he’ll need to excel in Eagle River beginning on Jan. 17, but Boivin knows it isn’t time to panic. He’s raced—and succeeded—on ice ovals on a sled since he was four years old at the Kitty Cat level.
“The competition was top-notch,” said Boivin’s father, Al. “We still have some tuning to do. As the season goes on, it’ll be better.”
The elder Boivin, a former racer himself, said “we” because he’s his son’s mechanic and coach, as well as a mentor and a father.
“When I mention ‘we,’ it’s a team effort,” he said. “We’re a team, myself and Curtis, and Curtis’ mother, Carol.”
Young Boivin isn’t getting misty-eyed about losing his junior status. While the move to the semi-pro circuit comes with a broader, tougher field, he’s already racing against semi-pro racers at a number of open events—just with a standard, weaker snowmobile.
“I take my stock motor sled and compete against semi-pro with a mod sled,” he complained. “Every year, we have to step it up.”
“He wants the extra speed,” his dad added. “He’s a very talented driver, and he can handle it.”
The season doesn’t last long, ending in early March because of the weather conditions needed for snowmobile racing. Sleds race on a full foot of ice, with racers like Boivin topping 140 km/h on half-mile tracks.
That means some real dedication is required from racers, with Boivin’s family taking a 10-hour drive to Rock Rapids, Iowa next weekend for a competition and then spending weekends throughout January and February on the road.
That’s just how much racing means to Boivin, who, at his young age, already has had more than a dozen sleds to go with his multiple racing awards.
“It’s a really big part [of my life]. I don’t know what I’d do without it,” he said.
With his junior career ending and his semi-pro career looming, the next step to being a full professional racer—and consequently, racing as a profession—is the obvious one ahead.
Boivin can turn pro after just one solid year of racing semi-pro, so long as he sufficiently proves his abilities.
While semi-pro racing isn’t daunting, Boivin admitted he’s intimidated by the prospect of racing as a pro.
“Once you get to pro, you’re pretty much in the back of the pack and work up to the middle of the pack,” he remarked. “People in the front of the pack have been working at this for years.
“I probably won’t be able to do it for the rest of my life,” he admitted. “Hopefully I can go to pro, but it’s a lot of money to go to pro. It’s a lot of work.
“Competition is huge in pro.”
That’s not to say Boivin hasn’t put in a lot of work. The travel is long and the competition can be fierce. But even as a seasonal activity, Boivin said snowmobiling is his only real hobby and major interest.
He talked of an interest in engineering as a career—mostly from his mechanical experience with snowmobiles.
At least all that time is spent with his family. Boivin’s parents share their son’s snowmachine racing career not just out of love for their child, but also an interest in the sport.
Al Boivin was a racer who garnered his own reputation in his day—but he doesn’t mince words when asked who’s the better racer now.
“Oh he is, for sure,” Al laughed. “I actually raced last spring in a mechanics’ race and it was hard. He was going a lot faster. I thought I was going fast.”
Boivin has about a dozen races to compete in before the season—and his junior career—is done. WSA Racing will be featured on the FSN North regional sports network in the U.S. this season, meaning the teen even has a chance to become a minor television celebrity.
It’s a final season and the end of an era, sure. But it’s one Boivin said he’s been looking forward to.
“It’s been a long, hot summer and finally some decent weather. It’s time to go racing,” he enthused.
(Fort Frances Times)