UW-Madison engineers are ‘clean snowmobile’ champs

College of Engineering students at UW–Madison have won the 2006 Society of Automotive Engineers Clean Snowmobile Challenge by taking a comprehensive approach to the contest.

“We tried to do well in everything, instead of concentrating on one or two things,” said team captain Gary Diehl.

The Clean Snowmobile Challenge, hosted at Michigan Tech’s Keweenaw Research Center March 13-18, is the Society of Automotive Engineers’ newest collegiate design competition. Teams of engineering students from participating schools take a stock snowmobile and reengineer it to reduce emissions and noise while maintaining or improving performance.

The UW–Madison four-stroke Polaris took first place in the emissions category, earning the Lotus Engineering and Horiba Instruments Award, and was competitive enough in all the other events to earn overall top honors.

Two years ago, the Badgers’ innovative hybrid gas-electric sled also earned the team a gold, but the team has since opted to focus on more conventional technology.

Representatives from both the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service were on hand at the awards presentations Saturday to underscore their support of the Clean Snowmobile Challenge.

“This has meant a tremendous amount to Yellowstone National Park,” said Jack Evanoff, the park’s environmental manager. Snowmobile emissions at the park, which have been at the heart of a major controversy, have plummeted in the seven years since the first Clean Snowmobile Challenge, he said.

“As the world’s foremost provider of outdoor recreation, we have a desire for a clean, quiet experience for all of our users, including those who ride our snowmobile trail systems,” said Leon LaVigne, recreation program manager for the forest service’s Eastern Region. “The CSC is a real-life example of using new, creative approaches to working together toward improving the quality of a great recreational activity and, at the same time, improving environmental quality.”