Fischer Earns 7th Watercross World Championship At Grantsburg
David Fischer continued his aggressive assault on the watercross record books when he earned his seventh Pro Open World Championship title at Grantsburg, Wisconsin, on July 20.
Fischer, 32, of St. Paul, Minnesota, went into the 48th annual Grantsburg World Championship Snowmobile Watercross as the favorite after winning the previous five titles and six of the last seven.
But the field of riders in the highly competitive watercross world is getting increasingly stout. Many top drivers were jonesing to write their own name into history. None more so than Hubbell, Michigan’s Jimmy Marietta, who in fact beat Fischer to the waving checkered flag earlier in the day in the Pro Stock class.
With the big title on the line, though, Fischer was unstoppable in Pro Open. He led every second of the 10-lap final, braving fierce waters and a strong field of racers.
“Seven means a lot,” a smiling Fischer said after the final, standing next to his winning Polaris 9R snowmobile. “I’ve been chasing this dream for a long time and even at six I was very fortunate. But now with seven? That one’s really cool for sure.”
Fischer now only trails Snowmobile Hall of Famer Mark Maki, the so-called Godfather of the sport who won 12 titles at Grantsburg.
Pro Open Watercross Final
The full weekend of racing at Grantsburg was even more spectacular than normal, thanks to great weather, huge crowds, various added activities and awesome racing. In fact, organizers of the event said it was likely the biggest crowd in 10-plus years.
In Pro Open, a deep field of racers on loud machines was narrowed to 12 through qualifying races Saturday before quarterfinals and semifinals knocked it down to the six top racers for Sunday afternoon’s grand finale.
When the starting lights flashed green for the 10-lap final, Fischer’s powerful No. 36 Polaris rocketed off the sand and onto Memory Lake first, stirring up the water directly in front of Nick Mattila, Jimmy Marietta and Dayton Moyle. After the first lap, around the floating buoys that mark the course, Fischer had already opened a 10 sled-length lead, running a tight line and using game-changing power on the straightaways.
In modern watercross racing, each competitor must take one longer lap around buoys that are placed farther out in one of the turns. The second, third and fourth positions in the running order of the final varied depending on when each racer took that longer lap.
The most eventful moment in the race came on about lap six, when Fischer caught the lapped sled of Grant Whittaker right at the turn-two buoy and tried to slice inside of him. The two sleds clacked side panels, but both racers saved their rides with athletic prowess in the roiling waters and continued.
Fisher waited until the very last lap to take the path around the so-called “equalizer buoys.” Even then, the race to the checkered wasn’t very close. Fischer stormed past the crowd with a broad victory. Marietta rallied for second ahead of Moyle. Mattila came home fourth, followed by Kadyn Hudek and Whitaker.
“The starts are really big because obviously you want to run clean water,” Fischer told Snow Goer after the race. “But as you saw here today, we got into lapped traffic pretty quick, so we were running rough water the whole time. That’s such a big variable that we don’t know what can happen.”
Asked about whether he was trying to eventually catch Maki’s record of 12 watercross championships, Fischer said, “That’s a long way off! I mean, I definitely feel like I hit my mark with this seventh win, I definitely feel that. A lot of Mark’s first [titles] were based on distance or time. He’s obviously the Godfather of watercross – he’s the man! – but I feel like I’ve definitely hit a mark with having seven full-on, hard races that were all battled head-to-head. I’m pumped to have seven.”
Watercross Pro Stock
The person considered THE watercross world champion is determined in Pro Open. However, there are W.C. titles to be claimed in other classes as well. And roughly an hour before the Pro Open final, Neil Mariette put his name on the Pro Stock class trophy with a dominant win.
It didn’t start that way, however. The first one off the beach was Kadyn Hudak on the No. 33 Polaris. With his mid-pack start, David Fischer took his trip around the equalizer buoys on the very first lap.
A couple of laps into the race, Marietta used a line tight to the buoys to slice under Hudak and into the lead. After being pushed out to a wider line, Hudak used the equalizer buoys on that same lap.
All eyes were then on second-place Fischer to see if he could narrow the gap enough on Marietta so that he’d grab the lead when Marietta took the equalizer lap. But Fischer was seemingly always mired in traffic while lapping sleds. Several times we saw him have to alter his lines or make other dramatic moves to try to make pace while avoiding contact with others.
In the end, Marietta’s lead was too big, and the popular Yooper grabbed the win in high style. Fischer scored second, with Hudak locking onto third. Then came Aaron Strom, Ben Eastman and Brian Boyle.
After the race, Marietta told us the Polaris he was riding was owned by Teddy Laurie of the Drift Inn in Copper City, Michigan. It features a Polaris 700 twin from 2002 that was wedged into a 2020 Polaris RMK chassis.
“When Kadyn Hudak pulled the holeshot on me, I was a little nervous there for a second and I got blasted really bad” with water, Marietta said. “The sled gurgled a little bit but then it came back [to full power] and I was able to pass him I think it was on lap two and then just kind of run away with it.
“I looked back and I was kind of tracking where David [Fischer] was, and I looked ahead and saw that there was some lapped traffic so I went for my EQ at the perfect time,” Marietta said. Fischer “even complimented me when we were done with the race, he said, ‘You couldn’t have done that at a better time.’”
Before his victory lap, it was second place Fischer who joyfully wedged the checkered flag behind Marietta’s personal floatation device, showcasing the brotherhood often felt among watercross racers.
Semi Pro Open
The top racers in the Semi Pro ranks are often the stars of tomorrow, so the class always bears watching. But the racing was top-notch as well.
In the eight-lap Semi-Pro Open final, Tyler Baird got the holeshot and launched into the early lead. He was followed by Ellis Peterson. While those two were pinching off the corner on the far end of the track, though, Tim Corrigan made an immediate charge for the distant equalizer buoys, getting the longest lap out of the way right away.
Even after the long route, Corrigan quickly locked into third place behind Peterson, then charged into second shortly thereafter. His pursuit of the leader was relentless. He passed his way into the top spot before Baird even made his own run at the equalizer buoys.
In the end, it was Corrigan by a broad margin, followed by Baird and then Chris Johnson and Kevin Skelton. Canadian Jesse Vallee and Peterson finished fifth and sixth but had to have their sleds raised from the bottom of the pond after the event.
Semi Pro Stock
Semi-Pro Stock was equally as entertaining. Draycen Byfuglien got the early jump from the inside lane off the starting line, but he had Chris Johnson and others snapping at his rear bumper in the early going.
Johnson stayed in tight pursuit and took the lead. Then Johnson gave it back to Byfuglien when he used the equalizer buoy. When Byfuglien took the equalizer a lap later, though, Johnson drifted somewhat wide in the same turn, keeping the race closer than it needed to be.
No bother, Johnson charged to a popular victory, with Byfuglien relatively close. There was then a larger gap to Byfuglien’s teammate Tyler Baird in third. Mike Wamsley, Jack Davis and Ellis Peterson rounded out the field.
NOTES:
- See our Snow Goer Live video preview with Mark Maki, David Fischer and Jimmy Marietta.
- We’ll have a pictorial about Grantsburg, including some of the behind-the-scenes fun, in our season-opening issue of Snow Goer. Subscribe here to get a copy.
