acrtic manTo welcome spring and say goodbye to winter, we decided to head north in search of sunshine, the smell of alcohol-enriched gasoline in the air, and crazy people going really fast on skis tied to snowmobiles.

We found it all at Arctic Man, Alaska's version of spring break in Daytona Beach.

The week-long wild and crazy party high in the mountains started 25 years ago, based around the wacky idea of mixing a downhill ski race with the power of a screaming 2-stroke engine.

It goes like this -- start at the top of a 1,700-foot vertical double black diamond mountain, send a skier plunging down it as fast as possible, hook them up at the bottom with a tricked-out snowmobile -- think water skiing -- then race up the side of another 1,500-foot mountain at nearly 80 mph before the skier then plummets down the other side to the finish line.

Read on for more about the huge party that actually overshadows the insanity of the featured race.

For the few hardcore competitors who show up, the whole race course is just about 5 miles long. Top teams finish in under 5 minutes, but the long-time goal of breaking the 4-minute mark still beckons. Though the 2010 leaders, Scott Macartney and Tyson Johnson, came close this year at an unofficial 4 minutes and 4.85 seconds.

But it's not just about the races. It's more about tailgating, Alaska-style. Each spring nearly 15,000 people gather in this remote mountain valley to celebrate the return of the sun and the power of a jacked-up snowmobile. For the week of Arctic Man, this small, unnamed -- as far as we can tell -- mountain valley becomes Alaska's fourth largest city, with Don Young, Alaska's only congressman, acting as unofficial honorary mayor.

The temporary settlement is made up of over 4 miles of row upon row of RVs and big manly trucks and trailers plastered with stickers and flying the flag of their snowmobile manufacturer of choice -- Polaris, Ski-Doo, Arctic Cat -- just like a modern-day motorhead Renaissance Festival.

When we asked a number of campers what they came out for, answers were always "the riding," "the powder," "to party," over and over. It didn't matter what age or gender we asked, from 50-something balding men to 15- and 16-year-old high school kids. Nobody ever said "to see the race."

It took several days to get "official results" for the race anyway, perhaps because no one actually cares ... which made us think the whole thing kinda was like Spring Break after all -- nobody ever remembers who actually won the wet T-shirt contest at the end of the day.

In fact, nobody remembers much at the end of the day. All we're left with is a sunburn and the smell of alcohol, or maybe alcohol mixed with gas fumes.