Trudging your way over a snowcapped mountain, you see a snowmobile shredding through powder with violent abandon. That in and of itself will put the fear into some people, but when you see one flying through the air upside down for 155 feet, well, that's the kind of attention-grabbing feat that'd shut up a crying baby.
No matter what, setting the world record for the longest backflip on a snowmobile is incredible, but doing it in the backcountry of Alaska makes the whole accomplishment even more insane. You can get behind the scenes and watch the 20-minute YouTube video about the week surrounding the backflip, but this acrobatic feat took a year of planning to go from an idea to reality, and even with all that work it almost didn't happen. First of all, you need the right snowmobile.
As it happens, you can't just buy a snowmobile, keep it standard, and do a jump of this magnitude. But, to be fair, it seems like the lads didn't need to do that much to prep the Lynx Shredder E-TEC Turbo R. Harder shims for the suspension to help Red Bull athlete Andreas Bergmark lay down the power on the run-up to the jump were essential. But ironically, the team didn't have a jump at that point and it was unclear whether they'd get to prepare one due to the harsh weather conditions in Alaska.
It wasn't until the final day of the trip that the weather cleared up, and the guys could head out to the site they'd been eyeballing and put shovel to snow. If I asked you how long it'd take five guys with shovels to make the jump that'd launch a snowmobile to a world-record-breaking backflip, what would you say?
Spoiler alert: It only took a few hours.
Although the weather cleared up enough to build the jump on the final day of the trip, and the entire thing was fraught with tension as though it had been scripted, the consequences were very real—this becomes evident almost as soon as Bergmark starts hitting the jump.
You already know he broke the record, but the whole video is worth watching to see what goes into something like this and understand how close this project was to being a failure. What's your favorite powersport stunt? Let us know in the comments.
