I was 9 years old when my best friend, Laure, invited me to go snowmobiling with her family. We rode behind her parents on a trail ride that probably lasted an hour and a half, but to me it felt like freedom, adventure, and pure exhilaration all rolled into one. By the time we got home, I was absolutely hooked. I begged my dad for a snowmobile.

As a young boy, Wayne stood many times on a box at the sink in his uncle's Polaris dealership garage washing his hands and staring at the poster taped to the wall above. It was of Alan Hetteen standing beside the first snowmobile he, his brother Edgar Hetteen, and brother-in-law David Johnson ever created.

We always had sleds around when I was growing up and I got into snowmobiling at a very young age. All of my brothers were into snowmobiling too, and my late brother Mike was heavily involved in racing. He competed in both snowcross and drag racing, and watching him — fueled my own passion for the sport.

As a Midwesterner, it’s almost a requirement to snowmobile. I was introduced to the sport as a very young girl by my grandparents, and from the beginning, snowmobiles were simply part of my life. I was always surrounded by the snowmobile industry, and stories from the trail were woven into many of my childhood memories.