3rd ATV Super Challenge Season is off and running! The concept of an ATV Super Challenge, which started over 3 years ago, is off and running.  An ATV Super Challenge is considered by many as the 'truest test of an ATV.'  The ATV Super Challenge series was started by Michigan Trails and Recreation Alliance of Land and the Enviornment, commonly known as Mi-TRALE.

The first Mi-TRALE ATV Super Challenge of the season will be on Saturday, July 2nd, in Bruce Crossing, Michigan.  This is the 2nd year that Bruce Crossing will be hosting an ATV Super Challenge.  The event will be at the specially constructed ATV Super Challenge track, a mile east of Bruce Crossing on M-28.

An ATV Super Challenge has 2 ATV's racing side by side.  They race on a course consisting of a series of Mud/Water holes, hills, turns, and the "Stop Box."  The ATV Super Challenge track also has optional 'routes' where by a racer can choose to go a longer route around a mud/water hole, in place of going through the shorter route consisting of the water/mud hole.  Then at the finish line the ATV Racer must pass the first set of cones, and stop within the parameters of a "Stop Box."  On the far side of each lane in the "Stop Box" is a cone with a tennis ball on top of it.  If the ATV knocks the tennis ball off the cone, that driver loses the race.

"What makes an ATV Super Challenge exciting for both the drivers and the fans is the fact that a driver is racing as fast as they can to the finish line, only to find out that either the stop box has so much mud that the ATV slides and knocks off the cone, or the brakes on the ATV simply didn't work," commented Mi-TRALE Executive Board member and ATV Super Challenge concept designed, Skip Schulz.

The ATV Super Challenge races are for Sport, Trail, and Utility ATV's.  The classes are based upon engine size, and includes both 2 Wheel Drive and 4 Wheel Drive.  This concept has caught on in other parts of the country.   An ATV Super Challenge track is being built in the state of New York.  The Wisconsin ATV Association has 3 ATV Super Challenges scheduled this summer. 

"We're looking at teaming up with the Wisconsin ATV Association for the summer of 2006 in having an ATV Super Challenge Points Series," commented Schulz. 

In Wisconsin ATV Super Challenges will take place just outside of Sheboygan, along with the ATV Super Challenge Championships in Gillete, Wisconsin the first weekend in October. The Mi-TRALE ATV Super Challenge Series includes a race at the permanently built ATV Super Challenge tracks in Greenland, Michigan and in Ewen, Michigan. 

The ATV Super Challenge in Greenland is a part of the Ontonagon County Fair and will take place on July 30th, and the Ewen race is a part of the Ewen "Log Jamboree."  That race will be on Saturday, September 24th.

For more information about the Mi-TRALE ATV Super Challenges, contact Schulz at 906-884-9668.  For more information about the Wisconsin ATV Association Super Challenge races, go to the WATVA website, www.watva.org