NORWAY — Barring unexpected warm-ups or heavy rain between now and Jan. 28 and 29, Snowfest 2012 snowmobile racers will zip along Lake Pennesseewassee as scheduled.

There isn’t any snow now, but the ice is 5 inches thick, Diane Gammon, president of the Norway Trackers snowmobile club, said Wednesday in Norway.

“We like to have 12 or more inches to put the stuff on, but it’s going to be cold,” she said of the potential for more ice to form.

“So we’re going at it unless something drastic happens, like it warms up to 40 degrees and rains for three days. If that happens, I guess we won’t have it.

“We’ve done this for close to 20 years and if we don’t get it, it will be the first time that we’ve never had it,” Gammon said.

Updates will be posted on the club’s website at  www.norwaytrackers.com/.

Snowfest features single-elimination, snowmobile drag races on Jan. 28 on two 660-foot tracks: one snow, the other ice.

On Jan. 29, snowmobile radar runs are held on the two tracks. Additionally, there is an antique sled show and parade for machines more than 25 years old.

New this year are a radar run for antique snowmobiles and club awards for best antique sleds.

The event is the major fundraiser for the Norway Trackers. At Tuesday night’s meeting, Gammon said the club decided to go for it.

“What we had to do last night was make the decision, because we have to get our posters made, and there’s a bunch of stuff that pretty much has to be done by the beginning of next week if we’re going to have it,” she said.

Gammon said she also learned at the meeting that Maine’s freeze-thaw cycle may continue into mid-January.

“I guess it’s going to get unseasonably warm this weekend, but then it’s supposed to go right back into the deep freeze,” she said. “If there’s not enough ice, we just won’t run it.”

Gammon said they really can’t postpone it like they’ve done in the past, because it interferes with other clubs running winter festivals for their fundraisers.

One year, a lack of ice postponed Snowfest from the end of January to the second week in February.

That’s “kind of hard to do, because all the clubs plan their events a year before, so you may go up against somebody else’s event,” Gammon said.

“So this year, we just decided if there wasn’t enough ice, we’d just cancel. That’s our big fundraiser for the club, so hopefully, Mother Nature will throw some cold at us.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

RANGELEY — Like the Norway Trackers, the Rangeley Lakes Snowmobile Club also decided to hold its Jan. 19-21 Snodeo winter festival as scheduled, despite the lack of snow.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Rangeley Lake had yet to ice over, but the cove has frozen, secretary Sandi Dumont said. “Not the whole lake yet, but with the temperatures last night and the night before way below zero, we’re hoping it will get there.

“I know the weather is supposed to be warming up and stuff, but this is usually 10 degrees cooler than everyone else, so hopefully, it will dip a little bit more during the night,” she said.

“Right now, all I can say is it’s on,” Dumont said. “I didn’t hear anything else, so my plans are to go ahead.”

Weather conditions a few years ago forced postponement of the radar-run snowmobile races for two weeks, but the rest of the Snodeo events were held as scheduled.

Unless safer ice forms on the lake, the radar run will be held on Haley Pond, which is already frozen over, she said.

For updates, check the club’s website at www.rangeleysnowmobile.com.

There are no snowmobile trails open in Rangeley due to the lack of snow and ice on the lakes.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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