From the Smoky Lake Signal, April 3, 2002

Dave Jarema - snowmobile drag racer

Dave Jarema, 26 year old farmer and snowmobile mechanic, has had a great year in the snowmobile racing circuit. He started racing only three years ago, when William Trenchuk, of Smoky Lake, encouraged him to participate. David won his first place at Cold Lake that year, in the Open Modified 600 class.
This year he earned sponsorship from Arctic Cat through Echo Cycle in Edmonton. In October he was invited to attend a three day seminar with other Arctic Cat racers at the factory in Minnesota. They learned how to set the clutch and calibrate the computer systems for highest speeds and talked to the designers of the new sleds. The endorsement by Arctic Cat meant David Jarema can buy his new racing machines at half price, a $10,000 sled for $5,000. This year he picked an Arctic Cat 2002 ZR800. The 800 cc engine can take the machine up to 110 miles per hour.

David runs in both the stock class with the ZR800 and the pro-stock class with his own 1998 ZRT 600, which can reach up to 115 miles per hour with the extra tune ups he has given it.

The result has been a good year of snow drag racing. In Wetaskiwin he took third at the Stock 800 Class, and in Lac La Biche he took first in Stock 800 Class, first in 600 Pro Stock and third in King Stock. In the first weekend in February, he came in second in the 800 Stock series at Alberta Beach. He won second in Drayton Valley in the middle of February in the 800 Stock single and a third in the King Stock event.

Snowmobile drag racing is in his blood. He was sponsored locally by UFA dealers Andy and Sharon Semeniuk of Smoky Lake, who provided the gas and octane booster for the races.

Dave Jarema hopes to make racing a year round sport by drag racing on grass tracks in the summer. It is becoming quite popular. With any luck the snow will be better in Saskatchewan and open up more races next year. Five major races were cancelled due to lack of snow on the prairies this winter.

Mr. Jarema has been able to take his love of racing and make it a business through DPH Racing (Dave's Power House Racing), a repair business he runs out of his parent's Don and Lauretta Jarema's farm at the south end of Smoky Lake. He buys and sells new and used snowmobiles, as well as salvages them, buying older models and taking them apart for parts.

With new technology improving snowmobiles every year, Dave says the sleds he owns now will have to be sold and new ones bought to keep up with the racing circuit. Next year he'll buy a F5 500 cc model and F7s 700 cc model. They are lighter machines with the new chassis and can go even faster. The 700 models now support the same horsepower as 800 cc machines did in the past.
Dave took a specialty mechanics course in 1995, at Fairview College, to learn how to repair snowmobiles, quads, and marine engines. In 1997 and 1998 he worked at Performance Motors Sports, the Arctic Cat dealer at St. Paul before starting his own business.

"People just kept bringing in junk for me to fix, and I found I could make twice the money working at home as I could elsewhere," said Dave Jarema.