cutlers performance

CPC Takes Shape
As mentioned, Cutler spent his after-banking hours working on snowmobiles and motorcycles. This greasy-hand passion drove him out of the bank vault and back into the porting room.

When he ripped off his tie, Cutler went dealership shopping, hoping that someone would hire his talent. Someone did. As a former banker turned wrench head, Cutler repaired Sno-Jets, John Deeres, Kawasakis and Yamahas. During these times, he continued to teach himself two stroke theory, caburetion and clutch and suspension tuning.

However, Cutler wanted to be his own boss, mapping his own destiny and taking the blame for sailing his ship into rough waters, or credit when the waters delivered fruit. In rough seas Cutler learned mastery.

"Being a Cat dealer has not been easy. Cat has gone through bankruptcies, reorganizations and consumer downturns, possibly more than the other snowmobile manufacturers." But, as Cutler says, "I do this because I love it and because I love Arctic Cat." He says this overrode the pure money making aspect of his motor-oriented career.

Cutler's Performance Center is separate from Cutler's Arctic Cat dealership. "This way," he says, "I can keep track of sales and verify which business carries the cash flow in a given year."

Yet, Cutler views the business as one. "I spend an average 12-hours a day in my businesses, either answering phones, making out the shipping and receiving orders and doing the day-to-day paper work." And being the hands-on type he is, Cutler conducts all the "research and development" work for his high-altitude performance business.

Cutler is an active rider, averaging about 2500 miles a year. During the year, and especially during the winter months, he stays true to his body, working out and watching what he eats.

Dale Cutler is a tuner's tuner and a gentleman's gentleman. His passion for snowmobiling and to the Arctic Cat label is deep. He takes care of the sport that takes good care him. But, this is second to his family. And that is what he wants to be remembered by.
As Cutler grew into the Arctic Cat franchise business, he noticed an existing demand for high altitude Arctic Cat performance parts, but there was no supplier. With his banking background, the simple economics of supply and demand sparked an idea. His hands went to work.

"As I started making lightweight components and performance parts for my friends, other Arctic Cat snowmobilers approached me to make parts for them too. So, I went from one customer project to another time after time. CPC, though I did not know it at the time, began to take shape - it was driven off of need. That need was 'beat thy neighbor, thy Polaris neighbor.'"

1988 began as the first true year of Cutler's Performance Center. Cutler's first line of services and mass-produced products during that era were engine porting and lightweight rear suspension parts. From that, he added cylinder head milling, tuned exhausts and clutch tuning - with his owned designed components.

After one year under his belt as a deep-powder high-altitude Arctic Cat specialist, Cutler declared in 1989, that his business, CPC, was indeed just that - high-altitude, deep-powder performance. In 1989, CPC marketed this declaration in its promotions.

Soon thereafter, CPC started developing clutch springs and weights, cleverly-designed lightweight rear and front suspension components and big-bore engine kits.

Currently, CPC is building ultra-trick lightweight bulkheads and flat slide carburetors. These join his already successful line. Competitive hillclimbers, sno-crossers and cross-country racers are using these performance parts in their Cat snowmobiles. In addition to that, Cutler sponsors a limited number of racers who successfully use and promote CPC products.

Cutler also stresses, "My performance products are not just for high-altitude use, they are for trail performance also, regardless of altitude."

However, Cutler has not forgotten the other brand loyalists. With great care and exhaustive research, Cutler wrote a clutch tuning book for all brands, specific to hot trail running and robust hillclimbing. He has plotted and developed baseline figures for each clutch setup for differing snow conditions and elevations. The demand for his clutch tuning handbook continues to out sell his printed supply.