An engaging legend in many aspects of snowmobiling plus an innovative school teacher who’s using shop class, snowmobile speed run competitions and fun to inspire youth joined us on March 13 for an entertaining episode of Snow Goer Live.
Snow Goer Live is hosted live on Thursday nights at 7:30 p.m. central time on our YouTube and Facebook channels. It can also be viewed live within this story in the video player below. And, because it’s recorded live, we can take questions in the chat from viewers like you.
Joining us first on March 13 was be Mr. Rob Van Der Hagen. He’s the shop teacher from Olivia, Minnesota, who has gained national acclaim for his program that inspires non-traditional students with the joy of powersports service and repair – and the chance to compete on the high-performance Black Max Racing snowmobile speed run team. We talked about the success of his program, the super-cool race team (which recently set a new speed run record) and the goal of making sled racing a competitive high school sport. Van Der Hagen and his team have been have been interviewed on local and national television, and were the subject of a feature article in the February 2025 issue of Snow Goer magazine.
Next, we were joined by the one-and-only Joel “Joey” Hallstrom. He’s a true legend who started as a successful snowmobile racer. He then went on to become the longtime Team Arctic race director, then the Arctic Cat snowmobile product manager, and thereafter he managed Cat’s relationship with Yamaha. And now, he’s a race dad, helping his son and daughter chase their own sled racing dreams.
Hallstrom is the ultimate story telling – his enthusiasm for the sport oozes out of him with every word as he recalls interesting memories made in his entertaining and eventful life. We’ll also looked, including some discussion about Arctic Cat’s current situation and its future.
Snow Goer Live is sponsored by Arctiva outerwear, Z1R helmets and Gates G-Force belts. We thank them for their support of this weekly program.
Get caught up on past episodes of Snow Goer Live by clicking on any of the links below.
View our March 7 episode with Polaris’ Nels Eide plus Brett Richter here.
Check out our February 20 edition with Ski-Doo’s Vincent Duschenes and Steve Cowing here.
View the February 13 episode with Chris Riley and Jeff Fischer here.
Find the January 30 episode with Dave Sarna & Chad Colby here.
Here’s a link to our January 23 episode featuring Carl Schubitzke and Ron Fesko.
Here’s a link to our January 16 episode with Pj Wanderscheid and Bobby Donahue.
And here’s a link to our January 9 episode with Todd Myers and Ross Benson.
Here’s a link to our January 2 episode with Steve Hamilton and Brett Richter.
