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Snowmobile freestyle rider Heath Frisby calls Idaho home and fellow freestyler Caleb Moore, who died Thursday from injuries suffered during a crash in competition last week, a friend.

“A friend of a bunch of ours in our sport,” Frisby said. “Caleb was a pretty good kid, man. They’re really honest.”

That’s not a typo. Frisby switched to the plural because to earn Caleb’s friendship one had to sign an alliance with younger brother, Colton Moore, as well.

“He and his brother joke a lot, very much jokesters,” Western Power Sports snowmobile product manager Richie Kumm said.

Western Power Sports is the distributor for Frisby and the Moores. Kumm too stood on the Aspen snow when Caleb crashed. He recalled the Moores as, yes, two weisenheimers, but also a couple of the best athletes he’d ever sponsored.

“There’s a reason why two brothers from Texas got into snowmobiling,” Kumm said.

“They always pushed the limits and it sucks what’s happened,” Frisby said.

“Sucks.” Not a very refined word, but in this case probably an appropriate one. Caleb died Thursday, succumbing to injuries he suffered from a crash Frisby called relatively standard.

“I’ve crashed similar to that, almost exactly the same to that at X-Games before," Frisby said. "Caleb walked away. I talked to him before he got into the medical tent. Told him: 'See you on Sunday, buddy. Heal up.' Because I figured he’d be back on Sunday.”

A.E. Housman’s Athlete Dying Young told of “runners whom renown outran/and the name died before the man.”

Here, the man died before the name. More than 50,000 as of 8 p.m. Thursday liked an impromptu RIP Caleb Moore Facebook page in less than 24 hours.

“It’s like losing a family member,” Kumm said.

“It’s a pretty small sport," Frisby said. "Just kind of a tragic day for their family and all the friends of his. It just sucks."