SAGOLA – Champion is more than just where Matt LaCosse calls home, it is a title he has had at many snowmobile drag races over the year. It was this past Saturday that LaCosse put another trophy on the mantel.

This trophy is special. It was the Sagola Sportsman Club Tip Up Town Top Gun Trophy, a trophy that has eluded LaCosse for over a year. Top Gun is the Feature class in the Mid America Snow and Terrain Expert Racers (MASTERS) Racing Circuit. This is the class that the top Professional Snowmobile Drag Racers compete in. It is the class in which snowmobiles hit speeds over 100 miles per hour on a 500-foot groomed track.

It was in the Top Gun feature that LaCosse edged out the Top Gun feature winner at the U.P. Championship Snow Drags in Ontonagon, Jerry Buschell. Advancing to the finals as the class’s top seed was John Mihelich. Both Buschell and Mihelich are from the Keweenaw Peninsula.

The special-built sled also powered LaCosse to a first-place finish in the Pro Open Mod class.

From the winners’ circle, LaCosse thanked his family and crew.

“Keith (Phelps) and Greg (Brownson) built me a very fast sled. Biggest concern I had was hooking up at the start,” said LaCosse.

LaCosse also won the Race Stock 800 and Pro Mod 600, making the man from Champion a four-class champion.

LaCosse missed out taking home five class titles, when Mohawk’s Ken Cohen held LaCosse off by inches in the Pro Mod 800 Class. It was in that class that top seed Tom Hodges of Lake Linden lost a part of his exhaust in a previous race and was unable to get his sled to the starting line.

The Keweenaw Peninsula’s Wood Brother Racing, took home feature wins in Trail Stock 600 and Race Stock 600. The Race Stock 600 feature was a father-son duo. The elder, David Wood, beat his son, Trevor Wood, in the feature. In addition to taking a second in Race Stock 600, Trevor (Wood) took a second in Race Stock 800.

Gwinn’s Shay Thompson defeated first-time snow drag racer Dylan Drewa, from Florence, Wisconsin. Another Wisconsin driver to take a runner-up was Matt Kleinschmidt of Merrill. Both Thompson and Kleinshmidt will also be competing at the Mid America Championship Hillclimb (MACH) in Caspian on Feb. 21, the first MASTERS Series snowmobile hillclimb of the year.

The following Saturday, the hillclimbers will compete at the Wisconsin State Championship Hillclimb at Keyes Peak of Florence.

The first Hillcross of the season will be on March 1 at Keyes Peak. The 15-year old snowmobile sanctioning circuit also includes a Hillcross and Snow Drags at Norway Mountain on March 21, then an Uphill Drag and Hillcross on April 4 and 5 at Marquette Mountain. The season will end with a Hillclimb at Mon du Lac, just outside of Duluth, Minnesota, on April 11. Then the following day, MASTERS will end the season with the Hillcross Nationals and the National Snow Drags at Mont du Lac.