All Show, No Go
Before the first flake of snow arrived, Project Puff was being converted from myth to legend. A hand-built EzRyde rear skid frame was created by Great Lakes Sound and Vibration. Steve Polakowski flew from Michigan to Pinedale to help fit the suspension into Polaris' new chassis. The combination of a pre-production snowmobile and a hand-built skid made for some on-the-spot engineering. It was an interesting learning process for both Polakowski and the crew at Bucky's. But after a long day of measuring, positioning, drilling and mounting, most everything pretty much fit where it needed to be.
And after the boys at Bucky's finished with their first phase of assembly, Project Puff then went to Boondocker in Idaho Falls where Rocky Young could work his magic on it. This gave Boondocker the opportunity to finalize some of its installation kits and figure out the best mounting positions for bottles, gauges, buttons, etc.
By the time the Utah snow show arrived, phase 1 was nearly complete-installing most of the products that were going to be tested on Project Puff. SLP took the time to see how its pipes where going to fit under the hood and provided pre-production pipes to get by for the show. Like everyone else, SLP was caught between that awkward time of season where there's no product built to allow them to finish their product designs . and there was no snow around to complete product testing.
Project Puff generated a lot of interest at the Utah show, since hundreds of consumers had snow-checked the 2007 Polaris Dragon and were anxious to see what it would look like. Project Puff was literally the only Dragon west of the Mississippi. But the simple truth: Project Puff was all show and no go. Without snow on the ground, everything installed were only good for looks. The tuning would have to wait. In the meantime, Puff was headed back to Pinedale where winter usually arrives early.