Snowmobile

Levi LaVallee's Tri 5: Snowmobiling fun for a cause

Find out how LaVallee put on an event supporting Wings for Life.

By Casey Peterson

8 min readPublished on 04/23/2025 · 7:46 PM UTC

Levi LaVallee’sTri 5 is billed as “The most fun snowmobile race ever,” and the evidence points to this being correct: an April snow event using snowmobiles built before the year 2000, featuring riders and sleds decked out in colorful and intricate outfits ranging from Hawaiian shirts to gorilla costumes. It’s a judged event, not a true race, where the three judged criteria are “creativity, most fun, and overall awesomeness.” It’s an opportunity for amateur enthusiasts to share a course with professional athletes and legends of the sport, sharing laughs and high fives, all while raising money in support of Wings for Life USA - Spinal Cord Research Foundation.

To hear LaVallee tell it, the event was initially conceived in 2017 as a playful way to make use of leftover snow at his practice compound in Longville, Minnesota, “I had all this leftover snow from freestyle and snocross practice, and I told my buddies we should really do something with it after the [Snocross] season. The initial idea was a judged race where we’d all vote on the winner, and we could only race sleds we’d bought for $500 or less, with 500cc engines or less, and the race would be 500 laps, and that’s where the Tri 5 name came from.

“Of course, right away we agreed that few, if any, of us were going to last 500 laps. And there were a lot of 600 and 800cc sleds from the '90s, but 500cc engines were hard to come by. And good luck finding a snowmobile in good condition for under 500 dollars. So we basically scrapped all three of those right out the gate and now I just say that I’m trying to get a high five!”

After two years of holding the race in Longville, Levi decided he didn’t want to keep the fun to himself and opened the race to the larger snowmobiling community and the public at large. In 2019, the Tri 5 was held at ERX Motor Park in Elk River, Minnesota. After a pause in 2020 for pandemic precautions, it was again held at ERX in 2021. In 2022 and 2023 the race moved north, to Mount Ski Gull in Nisswa, MN, and, since 2024, the Tri 5 has taken place at Giant’s Ridge Recreation Area in Biwabik, MN.

Levi said, “Opening it to the public was a way to share the race with our community. But I also wanted to charge an entry fee and have all of that entry fee go to charity, so that way it could be a win on top of a win: we’re all having a great time and we’re supporting a great cause. Wings for Life was an easy pick for the charity, not only because it’s Red Bull’s charity of choice, but spinal cord injury has affected many snowmobile athletes, both amateurs and legends of the sport like Blair Morgan. Wings for Life is a non-profit spinal cord research foundation with the single mission to find a cure for spinal cord injury.

“Being a Red Bull athlete meant I was exposed to Wings for Life and their work, and the involvement that Red Bull has with the foundation. And because of that involvement [Red Bull covers all administrative costs of the foundation], 100% of every dollar donated goes directly to the research towards a cure. And that’s a super noble goal and it’s very easy to support it.”

Levi didn’t know it at the time, but the selection of the Wings for Life Foundation would soon prove to resonate further with the local snowmobile community.

In April of 2020, 17 year-old Raycer Frank of Paynesville, Minnesota suffered a C6 spinal cord injury while practicing motocross. Raycer was a rising star in the snowmobile world: he had competed in snowmobile racing since the age of 4, and had won the Amsoil Championship Snocross Series National Championship (Sport Lite Class) earlier in 2020, and this injury was life-changing. After the motocross accident, Raycer spent months in the hospital and doctors told him he was unlikely to regain the use of his legs. During his stay in the hospital, Raycer’s father Ryan got a call from Levi LaVallee, who they knew from the Snocross world: “When we were in the hospital with Raycer after his accident, Levi and Kristen [Levi’s wife] reached out and said ‘Hey we’re going to run for Raycer in the Wings for Life World Run.’ That was when we were first introduced to the foundation, and the LaVallees did a really good job of explaining what Wings for Life was and what they were all about,” said Ryan.

In 2021, Raycer was asked to be a judge at Levi’s Tri 5 and Ryan put together a team of snowmobilers to race in the event. It was such an easy and genuine way to connect the race to the Wings for Life cause that Raycer has judged and Ryan has raced in the Tri 5 each year since.

The connection between the Tri 5, the Franks, and Wings for Life continued to grow as Ryan and Raycer became Wings for Life Ambassadors in 2023. They wrap their sled in the Wings for Life logo and help champion the mission to find a cure for spinal cord injury. Ryan and Raycer have started their own fundraising campaign to support Wings for Life, called the “Whatever It Takes” Campaign. “We’re the first ambassadors to have our own campaign with supporter merchandise that has our logo and the Wings for Life logo, and this year [2025] we had our Whatever It Takes tent at the Tri 5 next to the Wings for Life tent, and we were selling shirts and hats and stickers, things like that. It’s a bit more of a personalized way to get people to support spinal cord research.”

In 2024 Ryan became a Wings for Life Ambassador Captain, one of four in the United States. He works directly with the foundation to shape and guide the Ambassador program here in the United States. Ryan says being an Ambassador Captain is like a second job, but he means that in a positive way, “I teach my kids that when we do something we do it right, we do it to the best of our ability, and because of this we’ve been able to do so much for the foundation. The amount of t-shirts and decals we’ve sold, the awareness we’ve spread, and the money we’ve raised is because of all the hard work that’s gone into it.”

Raycer has put that same hard work into his therapy and rehab, and has seen results: Raycer is able to stand and can walk slowly with a walker. He and his father hit the gym every day for at least an hour, focusing on strengthening the things that he can control. “If we could get about 10% more than what Raycer has now, I think he’s going to be able to walk. He’s right on that line and we just can’t overcome that, but that’s where Wings for Life has been so important. Look, we all know it’s not going to be cured overnight, but if we can improve 10% in the next five to 10 years, that’s life-changing. Not just for Raycer but for anyone else with a spinal cord injury. Whether that’s being able to walk, or move their own wheelchair unassisted, or feed themselves. 10% changes the world, so that’s what we’re going after,” said Ryan.

The belief in the mission of Wings for Life that Raycer, Ryan, and Levi share is contagious: The 2025 Tri 5 was the largest race yet. Over 70 teams participated in the event, and they raised over $38,000 for Wings for Life.

Nearly 10 years in, Levi has no plans to stop any time soon: “Once you get people going and they know we’re having all this fun for such a good cause, it’s so cool to see how giving people are and how much they care. And it’s neat to see everyone come together to make the Tri 5 happen, they’re all volunteering and it takes a lot of work, but again it’s all about that bigger cause. The way I see it, spinal cord injury is robbing people’s dreams and their ability to live out their passions, whether that’s riding snowmobile or whatever else, and I really hope that day comes when we can find a cure and folks can get back to the things that they love.”

Sign up here to participate in the world's biggest running event, Wings for Life World Run, which takes place on May 4, 2025.

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