AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
Back in the summer of 1978 Polaris decided to exit the Sno-Pro race circuit, much because of a bad accident that claimed the life of team member Jerry Bunke. The 1977 and ’78 season had been extremely successful for Polaris and its “Midnight Blue Express” with almost total dominance in the 250, 340 and 440cc classes. The new IFS sleds had annihilated the competition and there was not much left to prove.
Undoubtedly pressured by corporate lawyers and other concerned management personnel, corporate decision makers decided that a new race program would support privateer racers with the 1978 factory machines. However, this was not very popular with the racing department, which felt that privateers would lack the resources to compete against the onslaught from very determined Arctic Cat, Scorpion and Ski-Doo factory teams.
Reluctantly, the race shop started choosing the privateer teams, and our Aaen team was allotted a 340 RXL that had been raced by Steve Thorson and a 440 triple RXL that had been Brad Hulings race sled. In the meantime, Thorsen and Hulings were picked up by Arctic Cat and moved to the “Scorpion Squad.” We were lucky enough to nab Tim Bender. Bender had shown great form on Yamahas in 1977 and ’78, but Yamaha backed out for the ’79 season. With Tim as our main rider we managed to secure sponsorship from Amsoil, putting us in position to compete on the full Sno-Pro schedule.