1966 season

The 1966 season was the first season of the Snowmobile World Championship. The Drivers' Championship was won by David Johnson of Bombardier - Rotax and the Constructors' Championship was won by Evinrude - OMC. There were 11 teams and 22 drivers taking part to the championship.

Next season (1967)

## Report

##### Evinrude - OMC

Snowmobile and engine manufacturer OMC engaged two teams for 1966 : Evinrude, considered as the senior one and Johnson considered as the junior one. Evinrude's sled was pretty much on the same level as Bombardier's, so the championship fight was pretty close. Bob Larose has a amazing start to the season winning three of the first four Grand Prix. Martin Brochu had a more difficult start but started to caught up towards the end of the season. Despite having a great start to the season, Evinrude's performance stagnated in the latter part of the winter and Bombardier started to caught up. They won the constructor's title but Bob Larose lost the driver's title by three points to David Johnson.

##### Bombardier - Rotax

Bombardier had an excellent sled for 1966 having secured an exclusive deal with Austrian engine manufacturer Rotax. David Johnson won the first race of the year and had a lot of podium appearances until his two other wins in the latter part of the season in Manitoba and Quebec. That third win where he finished only a few seconds ahead of Bob Larose granted him the driver's championship title. His teammate Jules Favreau had a more difficult season, he was involved in many crashes and was more prone to errors. He took advantage of the collision between Johnson and Larose to win the Michigan Grand Prix, his only victory of the year.

##### Arctic Cat - Onan

Arctic Cat was the only team to select Onan engines for 1966 and that was a pretty good decision as those were the third most powerful after the Rotax and the OMC. Robert Maltais and George Powell formed an excellent driver pairing and secured two consecutive wins in New Hampshire and New York. The rest of the season was pretty consistent and Arctic Cat ended the season with a solid third place in the championship.

##### Polaris - Kohler

The biggest American snowmobile manufacturer entered the season with high hopes, but the lack of power of the Kohler engines and the mistakes and lack of pace of Ernest Smithson cost them big. Frederick Hansen was a very fast driver and extracted everything possible from the limited abilities of the Polaris and had a dominant victory in a snow storm against David Johnson in Wisconsin. On the other hand, Smithson only scored 11 points and one podium while his teammate was a championship contender.

##### Montgomery - CCW

Former racing car driver Samuel Montgomery decided to invest and form a team for the inaugural season of the championship. With limited financial means, he decided to race by himself and hire a relatively unknown guy named Bernard Bouchard as second driver. Montgomery were by far the smallest team on the grid, but its main driver's racing abilities owned them three podiums and fifth place in the Championship, ahead of teams with bigger budgets like Johnson and Sno-Jet.

##### Sno-Prince - CCW

Sno-Prince was the last team to join the grid for 1966 as they signed their contract with the FIM in September 1965, leaving them only four months to develop a racing sled from A to Z. They had a lot of reliability problems throughout the season and they did not score a single point until the 7th race of the season. However, Philip Jones showed great pace, when the sled made it through the race and even won in slippery conditions in Minnesota. Clarence Mack did not show the same pace as he was regularly one of the slowest drivers in qualifying and in the race.

##### AFC - CCW

AFC, short for Allensworth-Fairmount-Cavendish, was the second of the two artisanal teams to make the grid in 1966 (the other one being Montgomery). Their chassis was by far the heaviest of all teams but also the most resistant one as both Adrian Chavez and Karl Magnussen never retired due to an accident throughout the season. However, that extra weight had a massive impact on race pace and they only scored points on three occasions. Chavez scoring a podium in New York was the best result of the season.

##### Ockelbo

Ockelbo was the only European team to join the championship despite no races being held in Europe for 1966. Their hope was to promote their brand in North America and to export more snowmobiles there in the coming years. The racing team established headquarters in Wisconsin for the season and used their own engines. The performance of their engine was on par with the one of the Onan engine, but the reliability was far worse. Magnus Olufsen and Agen Karlov made it to the checkered flag only three times during the season.

##### Johnson - OMC

OMC's junior team had a way smaller budget than Evinrude and that had a big impact on their performances. They used the same engines as the senior team but their chassis was much heavier and badly balanced resulting in difficult handling and poor top speed. On top of that, Patrick Smithson and George Wallace made a lot of mistakes that costed a lot of points and money to the team.

##### Sno-Jet - JLO

Sno-Jet entered the championship as one of the favorite teams to challenge for the title. Unfortunately, the German JLO engine they were using was the second slowest of the grid and the reliability was pretty terrible. They only scored points once when René Simard finished fourth in New Brunswick and Robert Smithson was the only driver on the grid not to score any point during the season.

##### Larson - Briggs & Stratton

Larson was a small snowmobile manufacturer that decided to create a racing team to promote their brand. Their budget was very limited and they used 5-year-old Briggs & Stratton engines that produced almost 40% less power than the OMC and Rotax engines. Larson was the only team to use a 4-speed stick-operated manual gearbox that was very unreliable as well. Albert Simard et Claude Veilleux only scored a handful of points during the season.