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Straight speed!
Although ice oval racing was part of their lives for a long time, what really excited the Warnings was when a number of famous speed-run sleds from the NSSR era became available.
Their speed-run collection started when Paul Groth sold Jim his Budweiser Speed Sled powered by four Yamaha V-Max 4 engines. This started a long and enthusiastic friendship with master builder Groth, resulting in Jim and Keith buying Paul’s original Boss Cat 2, a Twin Track rail with a V8 car engine.
Next was Paul’s “SNO-KING II” rail, also a Twin Track V8 rail (See p. 34, Feb. 2012). In the meantime Keith had located the original Arctic Boss Cat III, which was a Twin Tracker with four 650 triple EXT race engines. At this point they had Boss Cat 2 and 3 but Boss Cat 1 had burned to a heap when it exploded its turbine as Dale Cormican attempted a run in Boonville, N.Y., in 1971.
Off they went to Groth, he was eager to recreate the Boss Cat I. Paul reconstructed the chassis from pictures and located a duplicate turbine. The bodywork was then recreated, from old pictures.
As a result, the Warnings were able to bring all three Boss Cats to Arctic’s 50th anniversary celebration in 2011, where they were a crowd pleaser. If it were not for Groth and the Warnings, this bit of Arctic Cat history might have been lost.
Part of the exciting NSSR history that flourished under Meg Grenshaw’s leadership, was the creations by builders like Marv Englert, Tom Earhart and Marv Jorgenson.
Jorgenson’s first famous attempt was with a sled powered by a 1,325cc 4-cylinder Kawasaki motorcycle engine with turbo boost and an unhealthy mix of alcohol and nitrous. A lot of crankcase parts were spread across the ice in numerous locations. That is, until he finally was the first to run 140 mph on ice. Marv’s original sled is now restored and in the Warning collection.
Tom Earhart was the first to break 150 mph on Wisconsin’s Lake Minocqua in 1982 aboard a Polaris sled powered by a Mercury V6 outboard racing engine. This sled has been off limits for decades, because Tom and his sponsor had refused to part with it. But now it belongs to the Warning collection and its being cleaned up (not restored), because Keith wants to keep the “patina” of the sled in its original race condition.
Warning collection includes Englert’s laydown 340 and 650 sleds, plus the World’s Fastest Free-Air machine, Englert’s 800 Polaris triple that ran on a potent fuel mix, of alcohol and nitrous, enabling it to top 140 mph. Not bad for a modified Starfire!
Other speed sleds in the collection include a Sno Pony, “Sno Job,” with a 650 Norton motorcycle engine and a Ski-Doo “Double Eagle” powered by twin 669 Rotax engines and raced by Duane Eck.
Not content to just collect, the Warnings got excited when Ron Bray resurrected NSSR and brought Groth out of “retirement” to build another 6,000-horse V8 powered rail, dubbed “Frozen Assets.”
After several years of development the sled crashed into a snow bank during testing under less than ideal conditions on a narrow practice track on Lake Minocqua. The chassis was a total write-off, but although the crash took place at an estimated 170 mph, the driver walked away unhurt, much to the credit of Groth’s NHRA safety cage design. There are presently no plans to continue the project.
Keith still races though, he now runs a 975cc Hirth triple, which consists of three 650 Hirth twin cylinder engines on a modified “Honker” bottom end. With 170 hp on tap this sled has been hard to beat in the vintage drag classes.
The Warnings have contributed greatly to the Snowmobile Racing Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Germain, Wis. This resulted in an expansion at the museum. Keith makes sure several of the sleds in the family’s collection are on display there.
One of the “big speed” sleds is always on display (presently the four-engine Yamaha V-Max) and for the Memorial Day Round Up show in the nearby park, there usually a V8 sled being fired up.
This winter the St. Germain museum has a special exhibit featuring 20 sleds chronicling the development of ice oval race sleds in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Eagle River World Championship in nearby Eagle River, Wis.
Snowmobiling has an exciting past and thanks to enthusiasts like the Warnings, our history is being preserved.