Ah, the glamorous life of a world champion snowmobile racer.

Leave your home in Thief River Falls, Minn., at 3:30 a.m. Friday to catch an early flight. After multiple layovers, set down in Bangor, Maine, at 2 p.m. Do the rental car-baggage routine, then navigate your way in another strange city to some place called Bass Park.

Check to make sure your buddies who left three days ago driving the 60-foot van with your three sleds in the back somehow made the trip on time.

After inspecting the sleds and enduring the media, grab some food and some sleep.

Now get ready to risk your neck circling a sheer-ice oval bordered with bales of hay at speeds approaching triple digits, racing beside a bunch of yahoos who may or may not know as much as you do about the complex relationship between the throttle and centrifugal force.

All for a possible couple of grand, not counting the $2,000 Arctic Cat will pay you for each victory.

“You don’t do this to get rich, you do it because you love it,” said Brian Sturgeon, owner of world championships in four snowmobile racing classes.

He is 32 years old. He is not rich. He works most of the year in a motor sports shop in his hometown, a speck on the map located in the northwest corner of Minnesota.

Sturgeon is the current king of the oval track circuit that winds through 15 or so snowbelt towns along the U.S.-Canadian border each winter. This easily qualifies him as the main attraction of this weekend’s Paul Bunyan Snowmobile Open, the centerpiece of Bangor’s Winter Fun Carnival.

It is immediately apparent that Sturgeon wears his titles as easily as his optic green-black-and-purple Arctic Cat jacket. He is patient and polite with questions he’s been asked numerous times before.

As holder of the Formula 3, A, B and C Stock crowns, he can spout stories of speed and daring as quick as exhaust.

Fastest he’s ever gone on a sled?

“That would have been last weekend at the Sioux City 500. We had qualifying speeds of 117 miles per hour. That was on a mile oval track,” came the reply.

How fast does he expect to be running on the tight oval at Bass Park Saturday?

“In the Formula 3 we’ll probably get up to 100 to 104 miles per hour,” he said.

His worst accident?

“That would have been back in ’91,” said Sturgeon, pausing.

Here, then, must be a story to warm a snowmobile racing fan’s icy heart.

“Four of us went into a corner side by side,” Sturgeon described, his pale blue eyes refocusing on events four years distant. “The guy on the inside lost it. He slid into the guy next to him and it started a domino effect. I was the guy on the outside. The track was banked, and there was snow that led up to the hay bales. It sort of formed a ski jump.”

The rest was predictable physics. Sturgeon went airborne “for 35 or 40 feet,” he estimated. The sled rolled in midair. Sturgeon flew off. He descended head first, breaking his fall with his hands.

“I shattered two knuckles on my left hand and broke my right wrist. I missed the rest of the season,” he recounted matter-of-factly.

Yes, there have been other falls, other accidents. No, he’s never been seriously hurt.

His is a confidence forged in 13 years of racing these spike-tracked beasts, the last nine as a sponsored professional.

There’s no great mystery to his love for the sport. He played hockey growing up and in high school. But his father, Dwayne, used to own a snowmobile dealership. Minnesota meant plenty of snow, and…

“My father was involved in racing for awhile, too. We went to races all the time. I always had the interest,” said Sturgeon, watching as a couple of racers in teal and purple Polaris jackets registered in the lobby of the Bangor Auditorium.

There have been too many stops in small winter towns to remember. But Sturgeon remembers Maine. “I raced up in Presque Isle back in ’90. That was a fun event. There were big crowds. Those people made it a big party,” he recalled.

Later, while showing off his three “Cats” crouched in the trailer – a 600 ZR, 700 ZR, and 580 ZRE FI – Sturgeon was asked how long he expects to defend his titles, especially since he is married, now, with a baby on the way.

“I don’t think there’s an age limit, but I’ll probably race another three or four years. Three years for sure,” said Brian Sturgeon, before continuing to prepare for another race.