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We told him he would be welcome to race out of our shop, and the Swedish Yamaha importer was willing to pay for a race sled if they could import it to Sweden after the season was over. This happened to fit in well with our plans, since Tim Bender was also racing with us, and he was building a number of Phazer Snocross machines with widened front-ends, longer tracks and a longer travel rear suspension. Sven arrived and started to work out of our shop, and our race technician Jimmy “the Greek” soon fell right into the role as Team Mechanic.
Sven mostly raced the USSA circuit, and at the end of the season he had three wins to show for his effort. Competition was a lot tougher than he had expected. On the USSA circuit he had to contend with John Wicht’s Polaris, and at Eagle River there were Tim Bender and Bobby Donahue who were in top form.
Sven and John Wicht developed a great friendship that continues today. Sven made a second trip to the States to compete at Quadna in 1988, where he won two classes. After Sven returned to Sweden he took over the business as our distributor and improved the U.S.-Swedish relationship by promoting a number of end-of-season races where he invited John and other U.S. drivers to come over.
A memorable race took place when we brought over John Wicht and Mike Houle. Both drivers did well against the Swedish top drivers. John almost won the race, but ran off the track as he tried to pass the Swedish Champion for the lead and ended up second. Mike Houle came home fourth. This was a very popular race and we attended a big party that topped off the experience. The trip was paid for by the Norwegian Polaris importer, and international cooperation was back on again.
After that, a number of Swedish and Finnish drivers, including Toni Haikonen started to appear at U.S. snocross races, and talk of license withdrawals and boycotts quickly faded. Today cooperation across the Atlantic is very good, with FIM running their own World Championships where American drivers are more than welcome. Tucker Hibbert has already won two of these FIM World Championships for Arctic Cat. This race has good factory support because it is also a great marketing tool for access to new markets in Russia. Thanks to Jim Bielke’s early snocross promotional efforts and Sven Revelj’s willingness to break the boycott and invite U.S. drivers over to Sweden, we now have a good relationship that finally works in everyone’s best interest.