Gary Moyle poses with his induction plaque for the Snowmobile Hall of Fame. He was inducted on Saturday, Feb. 21, in St. Germain, Wisconsin. (Photo provided)

HANCOCK — At 45 years old, Gary Moyle has seen a lot when it comes to snowmobiles. He has been racing them for nearly as long as he can remember, and loved every minute of the whole experience. On Saturday, Feb. 21, he was honored for that love with his induction into the Snowmobile Hall of Fame in St. Germain, Wisconsin.

“It’s a big accomplishment,” he said. “Everybody who’s anybody in snowmobile racing, they induct four per year basically into this hall of fame, and anybody that made a big impact in snowmobile racing usually gets inducted at some point in their careers. I’ve been retired from it for 10 years now. I got the call last summer that I was being inducted.”

He was not aware he was going to be inducted at first.
”It was great because I didn’t know,” he said. “I knew it possibly could happen, but I wasn’t expecting it for sure. It was just one of those things.”

Gary is best known for his racing on ice ovals, but he pointed out that there many different forms of snowmobile racing, including watercross. He felt blessed to be included as an ice oval racer, because it is one of the smaller groups represented.

“There’s so many different forms of snowmobile racing,” he said. From ice oval track to snow cross to hill climb to watercross to cross country. There’s a lot of different formats. The Hall of Fame covers all of that, basically. So, to be inducted for ice oval track racing was pretty cool because there’s not a lot of guys in there for that.”

He and his brothers stepped on the scene in the 1990s, racing junior classes starting in 1996. He hit his stride as a racer by 2003, and was a top competitor until he retired in 2015. Along the way, he set track records and earned several wins along the way.

“They’re really high speed modified sleds, and they’re kind of like on ice skates,” Gary said, when describing the type of sled he raced. “You have razor-sharp carbides that turn you, and you have say 500 super sharp picks in the track. So, they’re almost like a rail car, like a train on tracks kind of thing. They literally just carve through the corners as fast as you can hold on to them.”

Highlights of his racing career include the World Championships in Eagle River, Wisconsin in 2005 and 2007, three Canadian Power Toboggan Championships in 2007, 2008, and 2014, the inaugural TLR Cup champion in 2011, the Wisconsin Triple Crown in 2011, and Derby Midway Champion (Eagle River runner-up). He was also the 2005 F1 Open World Champion, and finished multiple times as the USSA and WSA high-points in Open 600 and Champ 440.

He was also named USSA Driver of the Year in 2004, and was a Snowgoer/Snowweek top 10 racer in 2004 and 2007.

“We started in a stock class racing in the mid-90s in the junior classes, and we would always go to Eagle River,” he said. “I’d go to Eagle River with my dad and his friends, and watch these Formula 1 twin trackers in that race for the world championship class down there. It was just always, between the loud pipes, the speed, and how they could line up 12, 14 sleds on the starting line and funnel into that first corner, it just looked like a really fun thing to do.”

He was hooked on the adrenaline rush.

“It was a real good adrenaline addiction, no doubt,” he said. “That’s what it kind of turned into. It was one of those sports, it takes such a team to team effort to win at those races. We had good success with that, with having a good team over all the years.”

He had to stay away from the scene for a couple of years after retiring.

“I basically had to stay away from it for say, two, three years after I retired in 2015, just so I did get the bug to want to go back to it,” he said, “just to kind of distance myself from it for awhile, to let that die off.”

However, he could not stay away forever. Now, he is a team owner and crew chief for his sons, who race watercross, and he sponsors events like the Clean Snowmobile Challenge.

“I’ve gotten back into it,” he said. “I’m helping other people, and I’m helping my kids race their watercross, and everything. It’s fun. The snowmobile racing community is just kind of like a family.”

Throughout his career, he has worked with his parents, Tom and Denise Moyle, his brothers Jeff and Andy, and then others including Mike Hill, Ed Marcotte, Dan Ghazale, Dick Baccus, Neil Marietta, Brian Moyle, John Hooper, and, of course, his own wife, Amy.

“It’s great having that,” Moyle said. “In general society, I guess it’s a lot of useless knowledge for just regular daily life living. But, you can really help the younger guys get faster, accelerate their program, so to speak.”

And seeing his kids race now brings him joy.

“It’s great,” he said. “It’s great to see them carrying on the same kind of thing, you know?”