Growing up in Auburn, Kevin Norcross and his brother, David, loved snowmobiling. Ten years separated the boys, but they were buddies, best friends. Snowmobile partners.

So when the brothers heard last year about Cain’s Quest, a 1,400-mile endurance race in the wilds of Labrador, they jumped at the chance to enter.

They would spend days snowmobiling through some of Canada’s most rugged terrain, in subzero temperatures, without the aid of trails.

It would be a challenge and the Norcross brothers loved a challenge.

David Norcross, however, would not make it to Cain’s Quest.

In April, the 43-year-old Minot man died of a heart attack. Kevin Norcross, of Oxford, suddenly lost the buddy he’d grown up with, the brother with whom he’d planned to share an adventure.

But in six weeks, Norcross will take up the challenge he and his brother had been planning so excitedly. He’ll enter Cain’s Quest with one of his brother’s best friends, Lance Robinson.

They’ll race in David’s honor. “I just think that’s what he would want,” Kevin Norcross said.

Robinson, a snowmobile enthusiast from Brunswick, had shared David’s excitement about Cain’s Quest. The two had planned to complete the trek together some day, after David did it first with his brother.

When, at David’s funeral, Kevin Norcross asked Robinson to be his Cain’s Quest partner in David’s stead, Robinson didn’t hesitate to say yes.

“He said ‘Are we going to do this or what?'” Robinson recalled. “And I was like, ‘Yup, let’s go.'”

During the trek, teams travel day and night, cutting through some of Canada’s most rugged wilderness with only a GPS to guide them. There are no groomed trails to help them through the snow, and temperatures last year plummeted to 50 degrees below zero.

Many teams drop out long before the finish line.

Practice for Norcross and Robinson has often been hampered by real life. Both men work, and Norcross’ wife is expecting the couple’s first child in February. But when they can, the two have trained for endurance, riding four-wheelers in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter. They average 300 miles a week.

“Which is nothing, really,” Robinson said. “It’s enough to get us going.”

For Cain’s Quest, the men will have to cover 400 miles a day.

They’ve also trained for the harsh environment, traveling to northern Maine, near the Canadian border, to find something close to the race’s rugged terrain. And something close to the subzero temperatures they’ll likely see in Labrador in March.

“I think the most challenging part is going to be the temperatures.” Robinson said. “Everything that’s bad comes from the temperatures, whether it be fatigue because of the cold, mechanical breakdown because of the cold, physical breakdown because of the cold.”

Six of the race’s 30 teams are from Maine, most of them from towns near the Canadian border. Norcross and Robinson will drive the 900 miles to Labrador, towing their snowmobiles, survival gear and spare parts behind. Another friend will go with them to serve as a kind of one-man pit crew.

Norcross and Robinson figure they’ll have spent about $30,000 to get to the race, including $10,000 on new sleds and $1,900 each on the entry fee. Community sponsors have helped defray the cost.

The race’s total purse is $60,000, with the first place finishers taking home $30,000. The top nine teams win something. Norcross and Robinson think they’ve got a shot at doing well in the trek, but they also figure they’ll be lucky if they come close to recouping their costs.

To them, Cain’s Quest isn’t about money.

“It will definitely be fun,” Norcross said. “It will probably be the biggest challenge I’ve ever been faced with.”

And it will allow them to honor the brother and friend who so badly wanted to be there with them.

They’ll race as Team DSN, David’s initials.