DeWald Wins Dominant World Championship At Eagle River

The DeWald name is beyond famous for fans of Michigan-based enduro racing, and 55-year-old Troy DeWald has put his name on countless trophies in various vintage and oval sprint classes as well.

Now, a second-generation DeWald has won snowmobiling’s ultimate prize. Zach DeWald, 23, led all 25 laps of the 2025 Eagle River World Championship on a bitterly cold day in Eagle River, Wisconsin, on his No. 57 Polaris.

Zach DeWald
Zach DeWald and teammates celebrate the Eagle River World Championship victory with the Snow Goer Cup and Derby trophy.

The Twining, Michigan racer overcame blinding snowdust, a sketchy near collision with a lapped sled and multiple restarts. He will now have his name etched on the Snow Goer Cup as the 62nd World Champion of this historic race.

“This is what we’ve been dreaming of since I was a little kid,” DeWald said immediately after the race. “You know, my dad had a couple of [trophies with] eagles on the shelf in the garage and I always wondered what they were, but man, we figured it out today.”

Run For Glory

DeWald had been impressive on his red, white and blue Mikey’s Polaris all weekend. He timed in well on Friday morning and then led most of the Friday Night Thunder Sweet 16 final before being passed by four-time World Champion Blaine Stephenson in the closing laps and finished second. Then Saturday he was again strong in qualifying races and went into the final as the second-favorite in the Snow Goer Tip Sheet fictional odds on the World Championship Race.

Stephenson, as the fast qualifier and Friday winner, was the favorite. Two-time defending champ Matt Goede and last year’s runner up Joe Burch were the other most impressive sleds in all of the qualifying heat races, but truly all 12 sleds and drivers who made the final were high-quality.

When the W.C. race started on a bright, sunny but truly arctic day, DeWald immediately grabbed the lead, but two-time defending champion Matt Goede was locked onto his snowflap in the early going on his Ski-Doo. Tanner Foss claimed third, with Reed Klinger fourth, then Joe Burch fifth. Blaine Stephenson started deep in the pack but started to recover a few spots in the early going, moving up to sixth by lap three ahead of Gunnar Sterne and Andy Shoemaker.

Joe Burch
Joe Burch finished second at the Eagle River World Championship for the second straight year.

In the early going, Goede appeared to be the only person who could stay close to the speedy 57 of DeWald, but even that was fleeting. With each passing lap in the 25-lap final, DeWald crept further and further ahead and by mid-race he had a half-straightaway lead to Goede. Goede had an equal gap to Stephenson, who had battled his way up to third. Klinger sat in fourth, with Burch fifth and Foss fading to sixth.

Even when they got into lapped traffic and DeWald faced snowdust for the first time, he appeared flawless, opening up more and more of a gap. If there weren’t any problems, he appeared well on his way to a relatively easy World Championship.

But of course, there were problems. They started right up front with four laps left in an incident that could have easily ended DeWald’s day. In turn one with four laps left, DeWald entered the corner just slightly ahead of the lapped sled of Dustin Schwandt and pinched down to his usual tight inside line. But Schwandt entered the corner even lower and looked like he was having trouble getting his sled slowed down. He pitched his No. 326 Cat into the corner, the inside ski lifted and he high-sided – getting tossed off his machine and right into the leader DeWald!

Reed Klinger
Reed Klinger maybe a rookie in this class but his overall racing experience paid off with a strong fourth place finish.

DeWald emerged unscathed, but the race was red flagged and his huge lead was erased. His competitors would start right behind him when the race began again.

The sleds were lined up on the front stretch for the restart in this order with four laps to go: DeWald, Goede, Stephenson, Klinger, Burch, Foss, Andy Shoemaker, Town, Sterne, Schuette and Schwandt. On the restart, DeWald maintained a tight lead over Goede. Burch slammed into the back of Stephenson in turn two, which didn’t hurt Stephenson much but it slowed Burch considerably and pushed him into a mid-pack position.

With a couple of laps left, DeWald pushed high coming out of turn four, giving Goede his first peak at the top spot, but DeWald won the drag race down the front straight and pinched down into turn one to maintain the lead. DeWald, Goede and Stephenson charged together in that order for the next lap, but then the red flag waved again when Tanner Foss had problems with his No. 14 DL Racing Polaris in turn two. Another restart was needed.

It was a rather even restart again, and for one lap all looked fine as the sleds took the white flag. But then in turn two, chaos broke out. Stephenson ran into the back of Goede midway through the turn, but then it looked like maybe Goede’s sled derailed its track and he stalled out when both he and Stephenson got back on the gas exiting the turn.

The back side of Matt Goede’s sled showed evidence of the contact with Stephenson.

Stephenson, though, was right behind Goede and had nowhere to go when he grabbed the throttle: He smacked directly into Goede’s rear bumper. The contact pushed Goede into an infield snowbank and Stephenson was knocked off of his sled. The tangle between the race’s two only former champions brought out another red flag.

In the staging area along the backstretch, there was a lot anger. Goede and his team were incensed – with Goede using some very colorful language to yell loudly at Stephenson. When we asked Goede what happened while he walked off the track, he said, “Blaine ******* t-boned me!”

Goede’s day was done. Stephenson was able to continue with a little nose damage to his Wahl Bros. Polaris, but he’d have to start in the back. That shockingly put rookie Reed Klinger directly behind DeWald for the one-lap, green-to-checkered shootout for the championship.

Once again, DeWald got a tremendous holeshot and was unchallenged up front. He stormed around the track one more time without any major challenges and wrote his name into history.

Behind him Burch charged around the outside of Klinger in turn two, but Klinger powered out of the corner and maintained the spot down the backstretch. In turns three and four, however, Klinger drifted high and that allowed Burch and a resilient Stephenson to slide past on the inside and earn the last two spots on the podium.

Klinger grabbed fourth, with Tanner Foss fifth. Goede was scored sixth even though he was off the track due to the fact that the remaining racers had been lapped by the lead pack. Sterne, Town, Schwandt, Schuette, Shoemaker and Harris rounded out the finishing order.

Words With Champs

DeWald recapped the race for us in victory lane.

“We had a good start and slammed right to the bottom [of the track] and we started clicking [laps] off. Once I was in front I didn’t have any snowdust to eat until we caught the lappers and I just tried to hit my marks each and every lap and keep clicking them away. I didn’t know how far those guys were behind me so I just kept looking forward and kept it hooked up.”

Asked about the contact with Schwandt, DeWald was very even handed.

“It’s tough, everybody is just racing for their own positions here, and I’m not sure if he knew I was the leader or if it was a pass for position,” DeWald said. “When you’re sliding inside of somebody like that, it’s tough, you can’t get these things stopped and it’s off-camber a little bit in that corner. Dustin’s a good guy and I know he didn’t mean it – there are no issues there.”

Even though DeWald grew up in an enduro racing family, he said the World Championship in Eagle River was definitely a life goal.

“Being that [the World Championship race] was in the Champ class [before 2022], it was kind of out of reach for a number of years,” DeWald said. “I’ve never even been on a Champ sled…  To come here – this is a little out of our category, we don’t race these sleds all the time. To come here and beat all of the USSA guys? It’s all the more sweeter.”

Burch said he had a very interesting race overall.

“At first when we got going, I settled into about fifth or sixth,” Burch said. “I was just maintaining, knowing that it was a long race. My enduro background came into play, hoping it would play out in the end.”

He said about the time he was ready to charge, the brakes on his No. 29 DL Racing Polaris started to fade and he has to slow his roll. “Then luckily the red came out and I thought, ‘here’s my chance to let everything cool off and I can regroup.’”

“I had a decent start but then I got into the back of Blaine [Stephenson] a little bit and it shuffled me back to about fifth or sixth again,” Burch said. He worked back up to third before the next restart and was able to grab second in the last set of corners before the checkered flag.

“I got second again this year – hoped to do one better, but second’s good enough considering all of the guys you’ve got to race against,” Burch said.

Stephenson, meanwhile, seemed a bit rattled in the podium area after finishing third but having that tangle with Goede in the late going.

“I wish we had the holeshot we had on the restarts on the initial start,” a dejected Stephenson said, “but it just didn’t go [on the original start]. We dropped back to ninth or eighth on lap one, it’s tough to win from there.”

Asked about the contact with Goede, he said, “It was just racing in my opinion. I know he’s pissed. We were all racing the bottom, it was clearly the fastest line and we were all going for the same real estate. I think it derailed on him – I’m not blaming him, I know he thinks I am but I’m not. I expected him to get going and he didn’t, and I was in the throttle and I couldn’t get off of him and…” his voice tailed off.”

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