November was quite the sporting month for Windsor High senior Hunter Patenaude.
After scoring six postseason touchdowns for the unbeaten Yellowjackets football team — four coming during their Vermont Division III title game win over Otter Valley — Patenaude traded in his pads and cleats to get back on his snowmobile and compete in snocross. Success continued with the new vocation, Patenaude sweeping both qualifying heats and the final on day two of Amsoil Snocross National tour’s opening weekend on Nov. 26 in Duluth, Minn.
After years competing in regional affiliate East Coast Snocross, Patenaude and his older brother, Leo, are in their third season on the sport’s national circuit.
Traveling the northern U.S. with their father-crew chief, Andre, for a total of eight competitive weekends through mid-March, the commitment means a lot of time away from home — and a lot of work, both while racing and while tinkering with the sleds between events.
It’s all worth it for the inherent thrill of snocross, a snow-and-ice version of motocross that sends athletes speeding off of jumps and zipping around corners for 5-10 noisy laps at a time.
“It’s really fun. I just love doing it,” said Hunter Patenaude, who placed sixth in the day-one final in Duluth and trails Sport class leader Ryley Bester by four points. “When you get on that snowmobile, you’re not thinking about anything else. There’s no better feeling. Football comes close — especially this year, winning the state championship — but there’s nothing like snocross.”
Leo and Hunter have been riding snowmobiles around their Hartland home since they were little older than toddlers, practicing laps in their backyard or taking to the woods and back roads. They raced in regional junior circuits beginning in elementary school and made the plunge to the Amsoil National tour two years ago.
Both of the brothers’ 2014-15 seasons were cut short by injury. Hunter’s never got started, having torn his ACL and meniscus during a crash the second day of practice. Leo, a 2013 Windsor High graduate, suffered a similar injury during an East Coast race at Vermont’s Magic Mountain, missing the Amsoil finale but still finishing seventh overall in the Sport class standings.
Leo Patenaude placed fifth in Sport last season and made a one-tier jump this year to the Pro Lite division, just under the Pro Open pinnacle. His Pro Lite debut didn’t go as hoped, placing fourth in the first heat Nov. 25 and crashing during the second heat to place eighth and fail to qualify for either the last-chance heat or final.
Leo Patenaude’s day-two heats were cancelled due to fog, leaving him 29th of 44 Pro Lite racers heading into the next tour stop this weekend in Winter Park, Colo.
“I had some bad luck in Duluth,” said Leo Patenaude, 21. “It just means I have to work harder and train harder.”
The physical demands of snocross are strenuous, with leg, core and arm strength all vital while maneuvering the 400-pound machines. The Patenaudes train vigorously between races, utilizing facilities such as Aurora, Minn.-based Planet X as a travel stop.
“There’s a couple weeks between Duluth and Colorado, so we’ll spend a lot of time riding (practice laps), riding cycles and working out,” Leo Patenaude said. “If you’re not in shape, you’re not going to last very long out there. It’s an endurance battle.”
It also requires plenty of social and domestic sacrifice, at least temporarily. Hunter is missing several months of spending senior year with peers, instead taking his curriculum on the road to satisfy graduation requirements. Leo Patenaude, 21, earned a welding degree last summer at Wisconsin’s Gateway Technical College.
The Patenaude crew is sponsored by Ingles Performance, a New York state-based dealership, but the boys worked long hours for Andre’s business, Patenaude Pool Plasterers, to help fund the tour. They also performed a lot of repairs and maintenance to their equipment trailer to make the tour possible.
“We definitely put in some long hours to make it happen, sometimes 70-80 hours in a week,” said Hunter Patenaude, whose crew will be back in Hartland for the holidays before departing for Amsoil’s early-January tour stop in Shakopee, Minn. “I definitely miss my friends while I’m out here, but it’s not like I’ll never see them again.”
The tour is a big commitment for dad, too. Andre Patenaude, a former competitive racer himself, transports the boys in an RV that over the years has doubled as their primary living and sleeping quarters.
“We spend a lot of time together in the RV, which isn’t really designed for winter,” said Andre Patenaude, a Newport, Vt., native who first caught the snowmobile racing bug while on a North Country High-based club team. “Some of the guys on the tour have it easier; they have full-time mechanics and things like that. We’re more of a mom-and-pop operation. We do a lot of the work ourselves.”
From a parental perspective, Andre Patenaude believes snocross has a lot to teach his sons.
“They love the adrenaline, but it’s just as much about discipline,” he said. “They have to live healthy, eat healthy and stay away from drinking and drugs because they have a goal to be the best.”
After sweeping day two at Duluth, Hunter Patenaude is eyeing nothing less than a Sport class title this season. “(Nov. 26) was a really good day, and the goal is to keep it going,” he said. “It’s all about consistency.”
Jared Pendak can be reached at jpendak@vnews.com or 603-727-3225.