STRATFORD MAN TO COMPETE IN X-GAMES
Thursday, January 10th, 2008 -- 2:40 PM
21-year-old Chris Kafka has qualified for the Winter X-Games' SnoCross event. The games are coming to Aspen, Colorado later this month.He's been racing since he was?well, too young to race.
"I started when I was 13. We made up a couple stories so people thought I was 14 for awhile because you really can't start racing until you're 14, so we snuck into a couple races," Kafka admits.
SnoCross is a lot like the motocross, only on a snowmobile. It can get pretty rough.
"If it gets real warm out, the snow moves around a lot more," Kafka explains. "It develops these huge, deep holes. They're big enough to drive a truck into."
"Some of the holes get eight, ten feet deep."
Kafka says his parents are on-board. His dad, Glenn, is one of his mechanics and made a deal with Chris when he was in school?if you get good grades, you can race.
It's become his fulltime job in the winter months and he's had plenty of success, but this is his first X-Games.
"There are 32 racers at X Games. You have to run heat races to make it into the main event. My goal is just to make it into that main event. Last year, there were a lot of good guys that didn't even make it into the main event just because people want it that bad," Kafka says.
The X-Games are coming January 24-27 and will be broadcast on ESPN and ABC.
[b]On the Web[/b]:
[url=http://www.polarisindustries.com/en-us/Snowmobiles/Racing/Racers/Snocross/ChrisKafka.htm]Chris Kafka's Polaris Page[/url]
[url=http://expn.go.com/expn/story?id=3170618] X Games schedule[/url]
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