AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
Summer is coming to an end. The lake water is cold enough the kids have to think about jumping in. I just finished the book I started in May and pecked away at every weekend since. The shady maple’s leaves are turning a fiery orange color and it dropped to 39 degrees the other night. Whenever things begin to change and the night air becomes crisp, my mind really starts to wander to winter.
As my Teacher’s Summer comes to a screeching halt, I decided to take a journey on my motorcycle to one of my favorite places on earth: Northern Wisconsin. I shouldn’t really qualify it with “Northern” because Wisconsin is one of my favorite states, period, north, south, east, or west. Rolling hills split by ribbons of paved “alphabet” back roads, lakes, corn fields, and farms with massive red barns straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. I would move there in a heartbeat.
Northern Wisconsin also whets my appetite for all things snowmobile. The Thief River Falls/Roseau corridor in Northwestern Minnesota may be ground zero for the beginnings of the United States snowmobile industry, but Northern Wisconsin is, arguably, where the industry cut its very young teeth. A lot of stuff has happened up there over the years to push sleds forward.
A must-do for me is a regular stop at The Snowmobile Hall of Fame and Museum in St. Germain, WI. Loren Anderson always does a fantastic job, with the limited space available, keeping the museum displays fresh, while retaining the must-sees like an original local Eliason Motor Toboggan. While I was in the area I also trekked over to Eagle River to gaze at a huge grass bowl that turns into the World Championship Derby track for one frenzied week in January. Right next door is another very nice, very eclectic museum, The World Snowmobile Headquarters and International Snowmobile Hall of Fame is filled with everything from twin-track racers to weird brands even I’ve never heard of. To cap it all off, I paused for a few minutes in front of the Chanticleer Inn next to historic Dollar Lake, the original home of the Eagle River Derby. It’s like a snowmobile dreamscape.
I am an absolute junkie for old race sleds and snowmobile museums and displays have, if nothing else, lots of stories with regard to the racing iron of the day. Oh, the stories. The one story that seems to run through the veins of way too many vintage race sleds, for me, are the hands these things passed through to finally make it in a museum. I remember a sort of local urban legend growing up involving Arctic Cat, allegedly, paying a trucker to haul last year’s race machines to a land fill to be destroyed. The trucker, allegedly, made a detour on the way and stashed a few of the most special machines, which is one reason why we get to ogle and drool over King Kats, EXTs, and Sno-Pros today. Who knows if this is true, but who cares. What a great story.
Another one I enjoy is the internet legend about the fabled 1977 Kawasaki Sno-Pro sleds. Nicknamed “The Sharks,” these green machines have been rumored about, dreamed about, and, probably, lied about as much as any sled I can remember. My favorite part of this tale is that Kawasaki supposedly buried these things all around their R&D property in Shakopee, MN and remnants have been surfacing, literally, ever since. Like some archeological dig for a prehistoric
fossil, men have laid awake nights dreaming of unearthing pieces of The Shark.
How could you possibly make that up?
I stood in the Snowmobile Hall of Fame and Museum gazing upon what, in my opinion, was one of the all-time coolest sleds ever, Tim Bender’s 1992 F-III Yamaha Vmax-4. The sled won just about everything it could win, except The Big One, the Eagle River Derby. It won so much the Powers That Be decided enough was enough and scaled F-III back to production 600s in 1993. This beast, somehow, ended up in private hands and was “on loan” from a gentleman in Alaska. What the? How? Why? Without asking Mr. Bender, I’m sure bills had to be paid and the only choice was to sell it off to create some ready cash flow for Bender Racing. Mike Sackett’s twin sled to Bender’s sled belongs to a collector too. Anyone visiting a snowmobile museum will be amazed at how many of these timeless treasures are now owned by private parties and not the factories or race teams that originally built/owned them.
But not everyone is sharing this history, unfortunately. I overheard a conversation at one museum lamenting how many cool old sleds are out there, just in that area of Northern Wisconsin alone and it’s like pulling teeth to get people to put them on display. The gentleman at the museum specifically mentioned a couple of ultra-rare Mallard snowmobiles sitting in a shed and the owner won’t temporarily donate them for display. Standing in a room full of race sleds, along with some super cool Sno-Ponys, Moto-Skis, and even a Harley-Davidson I thought about what a shame it is people can’t experience all of this history.
I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe the owners of these machines should look at it as free storage for six months or a year? Maybe the museum owners should make it easier for the owners to donate? No finger pointing, just confusion on my part, so please, as always, clue me in. Either way, we need to learn to play show and tell for past, present, and future generations. Because, after all people, according to the patch I just saw, “Happiness is riding a Rupp.” Peace and love, peace and love!