The Diablo Rouge (aka 'the Red Devil') Snowmobile

This took place about 25 years ago during my tenure as cross country ski coach at Hopkins High School.  It was about 8pm the night before we were to host the Hopkins Holiday Relays, which at the time,  was  the largest high school meet in the nation with over 400 skiers.  I was at Meadowbrook Golf Course in Hopkins with my ancient Diablo Rouge snowmobile preparing the course for the races.

It would take several hours work to get the course ready in marginal snow conditions.  Suddenly, a very intense weather front of Biblical proportions blew through at 40 to 50 mph.  Within minutes, the golf course changed from white to brown, with only a few scattered pockets of drifted snow remaining.  Then, my trusty Diablo Rouge decided not to restart.  I removed and cleaned the sparkplug to no avail.

I was about as low as I could ever be and decided to hoof it back to the parking lot, since I was nearly hypothermic.   There I saw 5 or 6 cars, some with their lights on, but instead of kids gathering for a party of some sort, here were  6 or 7  fellow coaches in full battle gear….brooms, shovels, plastic tarps, etc.  One of them had driven past the course earlier and saw my dire situation, then called all the others to come and help.  Within 4 or 5 hours, we had crafted a magnificent, white, eight to ten foot wide strip, winding 2 ½ kilometers around the course. Teams from 30 high schools from around the state, arrived the next morning to a superbly groomed trail, bounded by bare frozen ground. 

I can’t say enough about my fellow coaches, what a fantastic group of guys to be a part of.   The Diablo Rouge, meanwhile, ran just fine the rest of the night once the ignition wire was reconnected to the cleaned spark plug.

Revised copy Oct 10, 2008