The Crookston Driftbusters Snowmobile Club will offer a Snowmobile Safety Training field day for students aged 12 and older on Saturday, January 6.
Students must first complete an online portion of the class. The four-hour course must be completed on the student’s own time prior to the field day. There is a link on the Minnesota DNR website to take the class. The fee is $24.95.
Once the online portion is completed, students must print a voucher to bring to the field day. This field day will be at 8:00 AM at the Crookston Sports Center. Students must bring a parent or legal guardian to sign up, along with a helmet and warm clothes.
Mike Boucher is the class’s instructor and has taught the course for 27 years. Boucher describes what the field day will look like.
“We’ll register at 8:00 that morning,” Boucher said. “We’ll go over what they learned in the online class. We also have a DNR officer come in and talk about the laws in Minnesota as far as riding a snowmobile. What students their age can and cannot do. We show them some of the clothing to wear and how to properly fit it to your body size. We show them some of the equipment on the snowmobile itself and show them how to change a drive belt and spark plugs. Then there’s a short, written test at the end.”
The class aims to help the students achieve proficiency when riding a snowmobile by themselves.
“Snowmobiles are unique vehicles in that they steer with skis instead of wheels or tires,” said Boucher. “That makes them a little bit different for operation. You’re riding on a slippery surface, snow or ice in some conditions, so you have to pay more attention to your following distances and stopping distances and realizing that when you hit your breaks, you’re not going to stop instantly because you’re on a slippery surface or snow and ice and it’s going to take you a longer distance to stop.”
Students aged 16 and older do not need to participate in field day but are encouraged to attend. A $5 fee will be paid online to the Minnesota DNR website after successfully completing the field day training.
“If you’re a newcomer to the sport, we strongly encourage, even if you’re older than 16, to come to the class,” Boucher said. “We even had a lot of parents sit in on the class with their 12 or 13-year-olds, and they didn’t realize that anyone born after 1976 is required to have a snowmobile safety certificate.”
If you have any questions, you can contact Mike Boucher at 218-280-3385. The link to the online portion of the class is dnr.state.mn.us.
