Staff photo by Ari Selvey Alan Freking of Heron Lake races in the Legends Division at the River Valley Dutchmen Snowmobile Club held its Hillclimb Side by Side Drag Races at Golden Gate Campground on Saturday.

BROWN COUNTY — For the first time since 2023, the River Valley Dutchmen Snowmobile Club held its Hillclimb Side by Side Drag Races at Golden Gate Campground on Saturday.

Races began at 10 a.m. and continued throughout the day. One of the earlier events, the Fossil Division, saw Heron Lake native Alan Freking beat out Jeff Knott after the two had previously matched up in the Legacy Division, where Knott came out on top.

Freking’s first snowmobile race was the last time that the RVDSC hosted an event in 2023.

“[A friend] told me to get some junk out of the shed, and it runs pretty good,” Freking said. “One of my friends egged me to go along with him, so I did. I broke down half way through the race, so I didn’t complete it and I had to scratch out the rest of my races. But it ran pretty fast, and I went to some other [races] after that.”

Despite his relative inexperience, Freking has won several races with his Arctic Cat Crossfire snowmobile.

Freking said that racing snowmobiles gave him a chance to mingle with other snowmobile enjoyers.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “You get to talk to sled-heads like myself and talk snowmobiling all day. What’s more fun than that?”

Freking competed in several other events on the day as well. Complete results and additional photos will be available in Tuesday’s edition of The Journal.