Doug

I live for snowmobiling. The first ride I had was in 1968 by a classmates dad in a field in town. Nobody in my direct family was into snowmobiling so I guess I branched out a little. About 5-6 years ago I owned 13 sleds and a lot of NOS Polaris parts but have trimmed that down to 6 sleds and sold some parts. Currently have 4 limited build, one with an aftermarket motor and 2 current trail sleds. A guy in our club always had a camera at all our events. Here's one where the 1988 sleds were new at a local event that some of the local area dealers brought sled to.

Yes that was the Classic with the gold anodized tunnel. There was a guy years ago that ran that chassis with a 650 based motor called Gold Rush. Another limited build on my bucket list would be a 1991 Indy 500 EFI. They looked the same as a Indy 500 but had a black tunnel and in small letters had EFI on it. There was only about 200 of them made.

I'm 3000 to 4000 a year on sleds and don't have a ATV or UTV. Have a CJ5 jeep by our place up Nth used primary on forest roads and fire lanes but has been known to be parked at some of the local establishments up Nth after a ride through the woods.

Polaris actually had a very limited build of the Indy 500 in 1988. One of Polaris's fall ads actually used one of the proto-type Indy 500 sleds. When the sleds were released they ditched the blue in the center of the cowl and were the same as the Indy 400 white and red cowl only having Indy 500 on the cowl. Its on my bucket list to find an original.

Mine was a 1968 Sno-Jet in 1974 with a 340 single cylinder Sachs.

A number of the vendors at least the ones I know they kept their deposits because it was not "canceled" but "postponed". If they don't have it this year that will be an interesting topic. There was a couple other swapmeets that happened last year at least in Wisconsin that poped up that had real good results and reviews at a more affordable cost.

It's been awhile

My jackshaft bearing was fine but the drive shaft bearing was a little light on grease. I also normally shimmed the skis with .25 shims but noticed on the Matryx that the carbides were wearing a little more on the back of the carbides so changed out to .18 shims and that evened out the carbide wear.

Yamaha had some home runs with the early and last SRX's, Phazer, V-Max but they sure stuck out also. 81 SRX, 87 Exciter and the decision to go strictly heavy 4 strokes.

Badger You see 3 lakes is selling one of their New Holland all setup? https://www.facebook.com/Threelakestrails/

Fast actually made a Blade with a Harely engine.

Mercury would be my pick. They finally had a top performance sled when they got out of it. A couple not mentioned would be Alouette. They had the first twin track back in 1970's and also independent suspension. And Speedway, they were short lived but had some outside the box thinking in their sled designs

I have a 1985 Indy 600 with a SLP RZ 700 trail motor. Found a 1987 Indy 600 that had a Arrow motor in Bonduel Wisconsin that the guy was selling awhile ago. Thought we had a deal so I went up to pick it up and he decided to keep it. Sled was rough but the motor was free and all there.

In the 80's not many manufactures made 3 cylinders. Well one did . Some aftermarket shops decided to go their own direction with a 3 cylinder. Here's where Decker Enterprise created their own Rotax rotary valve 3 cylinder.

I was fighting the urge to sell the VR1 from this year and get a VR1 650 for my wife. Ordered my 2022 XCR 850 back in March and planned to have my wife drive the VR1 from this year but a guy wanted to buy it now. Guess we'll stay with the original plan now and I'm good with that. I know they're doing some fine tuning on the 650 for 2022 and has my curiosity up on it.

Anybody not able to get their sleds ordered. Seeing on other forums guys that were waiting and thought it was just a markets ploy now cannot get the sleds they wanted ordered and now are upset.

Our preference is have the sleds run in the trails first before we go out with the groomer. Last year we didn't have enough snow to open the trails and the snow was so light we were just pulling the snow off when we tried to groom. A roller would have worked nice but we didn't have one.

Here's ours when have the blade set to just enough to catch the top and roll the snow. 20190307_153724.mp4

With the Sno-Plane drags we can load them up with snow when we drop the blades to the point that the tractor will spin out. We don't have a roller but as light as the snow was when the season started we talked about getting one which would have help get a base.

Not necessarily off topic topic. Little trivia here is the the first Sno-King was originally the Boss Cat 2. The Boss Cat 2 has now been fully restored to original. I sold the collector that has it and others some NOS parts for a 1990-1/2 RXL and was invited to see their collection. Mouth dropping would be an understatement of the sleds there. The one pic is my buddy inside of the Boss Cat 2 after getting instructions to start it. Also in a pic is the Sno-King with 4 V-Max motors

Still have a 75 Rupp Nitro 440 FA

Mickey Rupp

Here is some of the speed run sleds from the early 80's. The Budweiser sled actually showed up at one of our radar runs to make some test runs. At the time they were running in the mid 130's with the sled. It was powered by a Mariner V6. As of a couple years ago the sled was purchased by a collector and was going through a full restoration.

Here's the first groomer our club had.

Funny when you do a search who's online my original user name and my dup user name both say I'm online even through I'm ban on both users.