Old School Snowmobile Pics

[Sled_Hed]

Bob Enns 73 I500 practice sled. 

[Sled_Hed]

[ICG]

One of Arctic Cats better days

 

 

[Sled_Hed]

Love pics of late 70's race sleds.

[Doug]

[Doug]

Dick Trickle a successful racer on a lot of asphalt short tracks and in Nascar also raced sleds in the 70's.  He raced out of Bob Donahue's shop in Wisconsin Rapids with Bob's son Bobby.  @fortune46x

[fortune46x]

On 12/9/2023 at 1:34 PM, Doug said:

Dick Trickle a successful racer on a lot of asphalt short tracks and in Nascar also raced sleds in the 70's.  He raced out of Bob Donahue's shop in Wisconsin Rapids with Bob's son Bobby.  @fortune46x

Dick had a huge influence on snowmobile racing (most know him from his nascar days) and a close friend to the Eberts - its no surprise that he had a hand in the top mods for snocross back in the glory days.

[Doug]

55 minutes ago, fortune46x said:

Dick had a huge influence on snowmobile racing (most know him from his nascar days) and a close friend to the Eberts - its no surprise that he had a hand in the top mods for snocross back in the glory days.

When Bobby Donahue won the championship on 1984 he gave a lot of credit to Dick Trickle for helping the team with suspension setup and aerodynamics.  Bobby actually had a used old design trailing arm twin tracker while the factory sponsored teams were on the latest A-arm sleds.

[Sled_Hed]

[Doug]

[Doug]

The Man – Doug Hayes: 

Doug Hayes began his racing career racing Ski-Doos in stock and modified classes out of the family Ski-Doo dealership in Crandon, Wisconsin. Showing strong early talent, Hayes won the 1965 North American Championships at Munising, Michigan, as a 13-year-old and posted five consecutive Mod I titles in USSA oval racing in 1969-1973.

Racing as a member of the Larsen-Olson Polaris team, Hayes was part of the winning Soo I-500 team in 1972. Doug moved to Mercury in 1973 where he began to work on the legendary Sno-Twister project. Doug and his brother Stan became a highly successful development and racing team for the Mercury factory in Fond du Lac, WI, with the pair posted dozens of Sno-Pro oval track victories including a sweep of their classes at the USSA World Series and a repeat victory at the Soo I-500 in 1976.

Named to the Ski-Doo factory team in 1977, Hayes won the Dr. Pepper Sno-Pro series opener at Kinross and won the prestigious Hetteen Cup enroute to a runner-up WSRF High-Point title before switching to cross-country aboard an Olaf Aaen-sponsored Polaris Indy to finish his racing career in 1979. Doug Hayes was inducted into the Snowmobile Racing Hall of Fame in 1996.

The Machine –1975 Mercury PDC factory race sled:

This Mercury race sled represents the proof-of-concept design direction for the 1976 production Mercury SnoTwister models. In 1975, the Mercury High Performance Group, which was not considered the Factory race team but was the Mercury Snowmobile R&D team – was tasked to design and build oval-specific liquid-cooled race sleds and confirm the design potential by competing in the Professional Drivers Circuit (PDC) against top factory competition. Following the season, Mercury requested that one snowmobile be saved for its product archives, and the others to be destroyed, so this machine is the only survivor of the six race sleds built. Doug Hayes assembled this SnoTwister from the best remaining parts from each of the team’s sleds, including his original #5 hood. It is currently on display at the Snowmobile Racing Hall of Fame through the generosity of Mercury Marine.

The Hayes family has a rich history in snowmobile racing – How did it all start?

My dad, George, had a gas station and repair shop here in Crandon Wisconsin.  He had a strong technical background, especially in electrical systems. He was rebuilding starters, alternators, and generators along with general automotive repairs. He also had a lathe and other machining equipment in his shop. Dad was mechanically gifted and very much a ‘hands-on’ guy.

One of his customers had a Polaris dealership over in Rhinelander and said “George, you need to take a ride on a snowmobile the next time you’re in town, I think you’re going to like it.” That winter the family made a Christmas shopping trip to Rhinelander – Mom and Dad with Stanley (age 13), me (11), Gene (9) and Terry (7). We stopped at the Polaris dealership and the owner took out a K-70 SnoTraveler (a small-at-the-time model with a Kohler engine in the back). The dealer gave Stanley a ride, then I got a ride. After that, he told my dad to go and take Gene and Terry out for a ride. My dad said that he couldn’t care less about riding the damn thing – but anyway, the dealer insisted so my dad and the boys took off.

When my dad came back, he said “I think I got more excited than the boys did!” My dad was the one that really got hooked. So, in the summer of 1963 dad got set up as a Polaris dealer. Back then you had to take three sleds to get started and I believe we sold 8-10 snowmobiles that first year – the interest just took off!

Tell us about the first Eagle River Snowmobile World Championship race:

It was 1964 when the first Eagle River race was held on Dollar Lake, and Polaris was there with a full crew from Roseau. It happened that we had one of the wide track Polaris models with an Onan twin cylinder engine on consignment from Polaris to see if we could sell it, so Allen Hetteen asked us to bring it to the event and said that Stanley could run it if he wanted to. When we got there, we were surprised at the amount of interest. Besides the Polaris crew, who had brought down a bunch of their sleds to participate, there were people from FoxTrac, Evinrude and even Roger Skime from Arctic Cat came out to Dollar Lake for that first event.

Anyway – we got there, and it was so cold that the Onan just wouldn’t start, and Stanley aggravated Allen to the point that Allen finally said, “Well hell, we got this 7 hp model that you could run if you want!” Stanley did run that 7 hp Polaris and ended up winning the event overall – he won the first Dollar Lake race so from then on, our family was hooked on racing these new-fangled snowmobiles.

The next year, Polaris came out with a new front-engine model called the Comet – and that model was a disaster! We saw first-hand that snowmobiles were nothing but a lot of work. Dad would open the shop on Monday morning and every single sled I sold the week before would be sitting broke down out in the parking lot and the folks wanted them fixed. After that 1964 season my dad had had enough and said, “We can keep a couple of sleds around to ride and have fun with, but we are done – we are not going to sell snowmobiles anymore!”

However, in the summer of 1964 a Halverson Equipment salesman, working for the Ski-Doo distributor out of Duluth, MN, stopped by and really wanted my dad to become a Ski-Doo dealer. Dad said he didn’t want anything to do with snowmobiles, but the salesman was persistent. Eventually my dad said “Well, I’ll take two sleds to try them out to see if they are any good.” The salesman had set the hook but came back with “No, you have to take a minimum of three sleds to become a dealer.” Could be that my dad had four sons that could ride them if they didn’t sell, but eventually he did sign up to get the three new Ski-Doos. It worked out OK because we did sell 8 or 10 Ski-Doos that first year.

As a new Ski-Doo dealership, did you guys start racing right away?

We were always a competitive family, so when Dad’s cousin, Lute Ison, used his performance knowledge from racing outboards to get his Ski-Doo to go faster, the need for speed was there. First Lute would be the fastest so we had to do something to get our sled to beat him, and the game was on – we would go back and forth changing stuff just to beat each other. We were feeling pretty competitive, so we entered our first stock-class race, with Stanley on a 1965 10 hp Olympic and me on an 8 hp Chalet. Wouldn’t you know it – the other stock-class race sleds weren’t stock! After that race my dad said, “That’s never going to happen again!”

Dad bought every book he could to learn about two stroke engine modifications. He started by cutting the heads, upping the compression, opening the ports, changing the ignition timing, gutting the mufflers – things like that. It got so our stuff was running pretty damn fast and we were winning a lot of races so my dad’s ability to build fast sleds was getting noticed.

What was a snowmobile event like back then?

In 1965 nothing was really organized. The local men’s club or Chamber of Commerce would lay out an obstacle course and we would race around pylons. Some events would have a bigger course staked out around a lake and you would race as a group for two or three laps to determine the winner. Another event was kind of like broomball, but you would have two guys on one sled, the rider would have a broom and you had to control the ball through a set course – whatever team got through the fastest won.

There may have been only 20-30 competitors across all classes, with 6-8 racers in each class. I ran the Chalet in the 8 hp stock class, with Lute and Stanley racing in the 10 hp classes, with all these sleds running similar internal engine modifications. Lute entered the 10 hp stock class and since Stanley also had a loud, gutted muffler, Stanley entered the 10 hp modified class. This was the time that my dad got into exhaust tuning – the gutted muffler actually ran faster than the typical straight pipe or megaphone exhaust that was common back then.

Anyways, that’s how we all got started in racing. My dad just kept modifying engines – cutting heads, porting cylinders, and going to over-bore pistons – he would make changes and then test the results with side-by-side runs. Eventually we had so many seized cylinders that he bought a boring bar machine so he could resize them himself.

In 1966 the sport was really getting popular; our Ski-Doo sales were growing, and the races got bigger and much more organized. For example, we went to Munising, Michigan and they had a 50-mile cross country event held on Saturday. The race started out of downtown Munising and went out to Grand Island and ran a lap on the island and back to town. On Sunday they had an oval event and a timed obstacle course event. In the end, I won all three of my classes on my 10 hp Olympic and was crowned the North American Champion.

What was the level of competition?

By 1966 all major manufacturers and many local distributors had race teams at the major races around us. There was an early season race held in an ice arena in Duluth that was a big deal, so Halverson Equipment asked Steve Ave to scout for promising Ski-Doo racers. Steve set up tryouts in Hurley so Stanley, Paulie Spenser, Dick Bahr and I went up there to run, with the idea that if you did good you could get help from Halverson. Of course, we all did good, so we became Halverson-supported racers and were invited to race in the 1966 Duluth indoor race.

About a week before the Duluth race the guys were brainstorming about how to get a holeshot on that indoor ice track. We had rubber tracks, so we couldn’t just add sharpened bolts to the cleats like the Polaris or Arctic Cat guys could do. That was when the first studs on rubber tracks were discovered. Steve Ave’s dad, Tony, had a Sports Shop in Hurley and somebody there had the idea to try the metal golf shoe spikes on our rubber tracks to gain some traction. They tested those spikes and – oh yeah – that really made a difference! Now they had to find enough golf shoe spikes to outfit the team. Steve called Tom Halverson over in Duluth to buy all the golf shoe spikes in town. We were studding tracks on the floor of the arena just before we were to go out to the line to race.

We also had a liquid traction product from my dad’s service station that was called Liquid Tire Chains. You would spray this stuff on your tires if you were stuck to increase the tire grip. In addition to the golf shoe spikes, we would spray our tracks with this stuff in every heat to get good hole shots. These tricks worked! I ended up winning my class on my 1965 8 hp Chalet.

As an independent team, how did you go racing?

Dad said right away “If we’re ever going to get better, we must race against the best”. Being in Crandon, we were pretty much in the center of the action to race against the top teams. On a typical race weekend, mom, dad, and us boys would take off Friday night and come back late Sunday night so my dad could work on Monday morning. It was really a family effort – my dad would work on the engines, my mom would keep track of the expenses, the winnings, the motel reservations, plan the trip, and keep us fed, and us boys would be working on the sleds back in the shop and at the races.

We had a pickup truck with a plywood shelf so we could haul two sleds above the box and pull an open trailer with two more sleds. As we got more guys racing out of our shop, we got a larger dual axle open trailer that could haul six sleds on it. Since we could now haul more sleds, we could take more guys, and some ran multiple sleds across several classes. We won lots of races so more local racers came around to get their engine work done. Our racing success promoted the dealership and we just kept growing and growing.

Developing tuned pipes:

We started competing in grass drag events over the summer. That’s when Dick Bahr started figuring out tuned exhaust pipes – Dick designed and built a tuned pipe for a 1967 10 hp sled that I was grass dragging. The pipe was so long that we had to run a brace off the rear backrest hoop to support the stinger. Even though it ran down the whole side of the sled, it was faster than a straight pipe!

Monte’s Bombardier, a western Ski-Doo distributor that also raced motorcycles, was instrumental in building better tuned pipes for their race sleds, so we bought some and ran those pipes as well. Monte’s measured tuned pipes off motocross bikes at the time (Montessa’s, Jawa’s, etc) and transferred those dimensions into a pipe that would fit on a Ski-Doo. Anyway, Dick just kept testing, building, and refining his tuned pipe program and, by working with my dad, they just kept making more and more power. We were winning a lot of races, so more people wanted my dad to do engine work for them. That grew into a pretty good engine mod business over the next two years.

How did the Dick Bahr connection happen?

Dick was a local customer that bought a 1966 Ski-Doo and raced with us. Well, Dick was a little on the round side and fell off a few times, so he decided to work on sleds rather than race them. Dick got into modding the engines and especially tuning the pipes. He became a master at figuring out the math behind tuned pipe design. He did much more than just pipe design though – Dick Bahr was also an artist along with his many other talents. We had seen the Ski-Doo Factory racers running twin carbs on their 250 single, but we couldn’t buy the special manifold. Dick carved a dual manifold out of wax and made a mold. He then melted down a few of the many seized pistons sitting around the shop, poured the liquid aluminum into his mold and – tada – We were racing with twin carbs! With dad modifying the motors and Dick building the pipes, we kept winning pretty much everywhere we went.

Introduction of ‘Factory’ race parts:

Ski-Doo came out with the T’NT series in 1968 and Stanley got a 600 T’NT from Halverson to race. The production models had cast iron cylinders but there was also a Rotax ‘Sports’ kit that included aluminum cylinders, new pistons, different heads and came with specifications to build a megaphone exhaust. The new cylinders had a removable plate over each transfer port to machine the improved shape (vs. a ‘cast-in-place’ transfer design).  Since these parts are easily identified, the ‘Sports’ kit was only used for modified class racing. However, they also had some other aluminum cylinders that – if painted black – looked stock enough so you could sneak those into the stock class every now and then.

Opportunity knocks

In the summer of 1968 dad got a call from Mickey Rupp with an offer to head up the Rupp Industries engine department in Mansfield, Ohio. Dad went to Mansfield to see what’s up. On his return, he said “I have never been offered so much money to do something that I really wanted to do.” In addition to dad’s pretty good offer, Mickey Rupp offered us boys a spot on the Rupp factory race team.

Dad’s cousin, Lute Ison, heard about what was going on so Lute called up Tom Halverson and said “George Hayes is going to Rupp!” Tom said “Lute, you tell George not to sign anything – I will fly down tomorrow and pick George up at the airport.” Tom Halverson made my dad an offer to oversee the Service and Racing departments at Halverson Equipment. Dad’s job was to get engine mod specifications out to all the Halverson dealers, and to do future engine development for the 1969 race season, and a part of dad’s deal was that Stan and I would race on Gil Hartley’s Red Diamond race team running out of Halverson race shop. Well, my dad would rather stay with Ski-Doo and, as a family, we would rather move to Duluth than Mansfield, Ohio. We made the move to Duluth in the Fall of 1968.

Dad’s move to Halverson Equipment:

Managing the Racing and Service departments really increased dad’s exposure to the key people and latest technology at Bombardier and Rotax. For example, Bombardier would host the key distributor’s performance people in Valcourt each fall to do engine development. Every distributor sent people to this Factory-supported workshop and shared what they were doing to increase performance.

Since Halverson was the largest Ski-Doo distributor and Steve Ave and Laurent Beaudoin (the Bombardier president) were like best friends, Valcourt was constantly sending us stuff to test. We had many one-of-a-kind Rotax engines in the shop to be evaluated. They weren’t legal to race but Bombardier and Rotax wanted our feedback, so we ran them against our race sleds.

Anyway, we moved to Duluth in the fall of 1968 and dad had a free hand to modify the 1969 models into our race sleds. I had a 295, Stanley had a 340 and Steve Ave had a 669. Back then, all Rotax production engines were fan-cooled, but my dad wanted to race free-air race engines. He went to local motorcycle shops in search of free-air heads that were close to our cylinder specs and modified them to fit our engines. He then went to work on the flywheel, removed the magnets and designed a constant loss ignition system using a battery and an automotive ignition coil, but kept the standard points for ignition timing. Those changes dropped a bunch of weight off our engines.

He then pushed out the cast iron cylinder liner and ground the aluminum exhaust port super wide. Cutting two windows in the iron liner allowed us to run triple exhaust ports for better exhaust flow. For the transfers, he ground passageways from the base of the crankcase that came out right above the intake port. For the exhaust system, he tries various tuned exhaust pipes, either from Monte’s Bombardier or directly from Rotax. These modifications really worked, and Stanley and I raced those engines at a time when Polaris just dominated everyone due to their new flyweight clutches. We were the only Ski-Doos that could even run close to them, so of course we got protested and tore down every single weekend.

Did you run any alcohol motors back then?

In 1970, all the factory teams were running alcohol fuel. Again, dad researched and modified the carburetors to deliver more fuel, as it takes almost 3 times as much alcohol as gasoline, but you can make more horsepower by changing the compression and ignition timing, and the added fuel really kept the free-air engines running cooler.

At the last race of the year, with all the factory teams there, I was running my 340 Blizzard with my dad’s latest engine mods and an alcohol carb set-up. At the start of my race, I was hit by a competitor and got tipped over, so now I was dead last with a factory Ski-Doo driver out in the lead. Steve Ave was standing next to Laurant Beaudion (Bombardier CEO) and Laurant said “Ski-Doo will win this race!”. Steve replied, “Yes they will – but it won’t be your driver.”  I drove my Blizzard from last to first – and passed the Ski-Doo Factory driver with more than a lap to go. Laurant turned to Steve and said, “Have George Hayes remove that engine and bring it to our Team truck – it will go to Valcourt tomorrow!”

After the Ski-Doo success, why switch to Polaris?

At the end of the 1971 race season, Halverson stopped racing. With that change, we all moved back to Crandon. One Saturday, dad got a phone call from Bob Eastman at Polaris. Bob would like to offer dad a job in their engine department. So, dad and I drove to Polaris and met with Bob Eastman and Jim Bernat. Dad declined the offer but suggested to call Dick Bahr. They did and Dick moved to Roseau to work in the race department on engine development. Bob also contacted Herb Howe at Larsen-Olson (a Midwest Polaris distributor) and Stan and I were placed on the Larsen-Olson team for the 1972 racing season.

Any Larsen-Olson highlights?

In 1972, I raced in Mod I (295cc) and Mod III (440cc) and Stan raced the Mod II (340cc) and Mod IV (650cc) classes. Stan had a solid year with both of his sleds, which earned him a move up to the Polaris Factory team the next season. My Mod I race sled was very competitive, but I struggled with the 440. Eventually we found out that the 440 crank was out-of-phase, probably from blowing a belt early in the season. Overall, at the end of my 1972 season, because I had won the Mod I high point championship for three years in a row, USSA awarded me #5 as a lifetime number. I would race under the #5 number from then on.

Bob Eastman offers a Polaris Factory ride for the Soo:

Back then, the Factory guys looked to distributor teams for new talent. In our case, Mom came out to the shop and said, “Bob Eastman called and wants to talk to you.” Bob asked if Stan and I could run the Soo I-500 race on a factory-prepped race sled. At 18-years old, it was a pretty cool feeling to be invited to ride with the Polaris factory boys.

I said “Yes!” right away but then thought about a possible problem. Back then you couldn’t just jump up to run the 650/800 classes – you had to be pre-qualified by the USSA driver-review board. While Stan was already competing with his 650, I was only racing in the 295 and 440cc classes. I called Bob back and said that I needed that higher driver rating. Bob said “You don’t worry about that, when you get up here, you’ll have a license. I’m the head of the driver-review board.” It was a real morale boost that Bob felt I was qualified to run the big sleds.

Racing the Soo:

For 1972, Stan and I were teamed with Laverne Hagan, who built the sled and was a Polaris test rider in the winter, so he knew what it took and was in racing shape for sure. Laverne qualified third with triple tuned pipes and a cleated track on our sled, but for the race we put a three-into-one muffler and a rubber track on it.

The race was an absolute blast. Back then it was completely a snow track, the straights would get all pounded out and, as your carbides went away, you just went higher and higher up the banked corners. With that quieter muffler, we could just sneak up on everybody – they didn’t even know you were there! We had a 650, and some of the guys were running 800s and could pass us on the straights, but eventually they would start breaking stuff – we just ran solid lap times all day long and we never broke anything. So, by the end of the race, Laverne, Stan and I were the winners!

In 1973, Laverne was set to defend his 1972 victory and I was asked back as one of the riders. However, my brother Stan – now a fulltime Polaris Factory racer – couldn’t join due to the PDC oval race schedule, so we had an Enduro racer from Michigan fill out our team.

Laverne brought us an awesome race sled – it was a 1973 Starfire with a Dick Bahr-prepped 800cc triple cylinder motor! Dick’s goal was to deliver massive torque across the power curve. He said, “I built you an 800 and that thing could pull stumps. You could gear this for 200 mph and it will pull it!” That sled was really fast – Laverne went out on his qualifying run and just annihilated everyone! He set the fastest time without even trying hard.

Laverne started the race in the front row and never even got out of the first turn. He got tangled up and went for a tumble, with him and the sled going end over end. Luckily, he didn’t get hurt bad, but the sled was a mess. We got the sled back in the pits and pieced it together as best as we could, but Laverne was hurting too much to keep driving. Del Hedlund, who was the Polaris race team manager for this event, sent the Michigan driver out on the sled. The pace was really slow, there was obviously a problem, so he was called back in. When asked what’s wrong, he said “I can’t see!” For sure, the snow dust was so bad that no one could really see much – that was just the way it was back then. Finally, Del sent me out for my stint, and I was just a young kid that felt bulletproof, so I just went wide open – just hammering it out there. Eventually Del saw the best way was to put me in for 50 laps, switch drivers on a much shorter stint and then I would go back on it for my full stint. Basically, I raced that 800 all day long and got us back into the top-10, but after blowing the chaincase late in the race we ended up with a DNF (did not finish).

I had so much fun racing that sled – it was a rocket ship, it was so fricking fast that we had top speed on everybody, and that Starfire chassis just blasted through the big bumps like I was in a 500-mile cross country race. Once you race the Soo you are hooked and want to race it again and again.

The Mercury Years

The 1974 Mercury SnoTwister was to be introduced and Mercury contacted Lute Ison, Paul Spencer and myself about racing this new model in the ‘74 season. We met and ran a pre-production sled on the grass, and it sure didn’t take us long to accept Merc’s offer. My season highlights included winning overall points in the Mod 1 (250cc) and Mod 3 (440c) classes plus high point driver of the year. I also won the Mod 1 at the World Series race held in Eagle River.

When the race season was done, Lyle Forsgren asked me to go on the road and help to finalize the calibration of the 1975 SnoTwisters in Minocqua, Wisconsin, Flin Flon, Manitoba and Cooke City Montana. After testing was done, Lyle asked if I would work full-time in the new Mercury HPG (High Performance Group) that he was putting together. Of course, I said yes. Our job was to design and develop the production racing SnoTwister model to be introduced in 1976.

Testing in Cooke City, MT

When I first went to Mercury, I worked in the Advanced Research department with Bob Mendlesky and Dr. Bob Kern. One of Dr. Kern’s jobs was to develop software to calculate the correct calibration of our CVT clutches – which were Arctic Cat hex drive clutches at the time. Bob would change the drive clutch ramp angle and length and not tell me what he did, then we went to the field and collected stopwatch data, noted the tach reading, and comment on my seat-of-the-pants feel at each set distance. I would then give them my feedback, and Dr Kern would work out how to predict the results using his newly developed software program.

My brother Stan left Polaris to become the manager of the HPG shop. Jerry Witt and I fabricated the dies to stamp out the bulkhead side panels, and I did 90% of all the welding and machining of the parts needed to build those 1975 race sleds. Stan designed the cast magnesium chain case for our race sleds and Mercury did the casting in their foundry. The chaincase design was the first thing that had to be done when Stan got to Mercury because Mercury only cast magnesium once a year.

After the HPG shop was completed, we started building our test sleds for a trip to Alaska at the end of October. We built those prototype sleds with different caster and camber angles on the front cross tubes, different engine location, different rear skids and tracks for this test.

Parallel to our chassis development, Dr. Les Cahoon and Dick Bahr were doing engine performance testing on the Kohler engines used in our race sleds and eventually in the 1976 SnoTwister models. The Kohler engine was based on a platform that started out as a 340cc engine making around 30 to 40 hp. Dick and Les brought the displacement up to 440cc and were producing close to 90 hp at 10,000 RPM. We would experience many engine failures that season, but by the end of the year even more performance was found along with increased durability of the engines.

After we returned from the Alaskan trip, it was 16 to 18+ hours a day to build our six race sleds for the season. The first race of the season was in Rhinelander. This meant we had less than a month to get six sleds ready to race! We did have the major parts built up before the Alaska trip such as chassis and bulkhead with the chaincase, rear suspension rails and tracks in place, but we still had to make the front suspension crossbeams, rear suspension front torque arms and motor mount plates for the final engine location. Dick was still working on our race engines and pipes until the week before we had to head up north for setting the race-spec clutching and carb calibration.

As I recall, it was just one or two days before the first test trip that Dick finished the 340 and 440 mod engine packages. Dick brought these first-generation race engines to the HPG shop in the afternoon, and we started fitting the dyno pipes to the chassis. We worked until around 2 AM until all six sets of pipes were finished.

The sleds were finally together, but we still needed a place to test. The ice on Mole Lake was good, so we ran there for a few days. From there we went to the Mercury test site in Minocqua to prepare for the first race in Rhinelander.

First race on the 1975 SnoTwister            

We had good results for our first race – I took first in the 440X class, and we were very competitive in the PDC 340 and 440 classes. Early problems were Kohler cylinder breaking at the base, lower end rod bearing failures, Prestolite ignition failures and we tried adjustable main jets on the carbs that didn’t work!

The mod cylinders breaking off at the base mount was because Dick had carved out the intake ports so much that there wasn’t much left to the flanges! This was cured by running bolts from the crankcase through to the cylinder heads. This would sandwich the engine together and stop the breakage completely. Silver plating the rod bearing cages and thrust washers dissipated enough heat to keep them running. We changed back to the standard Mikuni float bowl carburetors to get our calibration in line, but unfortunately, we had to run the Prestolite ignition systems for the rest of the year. The ignition problem was that timing would change when the temperatures dropped.

The chassis and rear suspension designs were under constant development during the race season and many ideas were conceived during our after-race debriefs while sitting around a restaurant table. Diagrams would be sketched out on a napkin and then we would build the next generation rear suspension in the HPG shop. Clutch calibration was being worked on constantly as new engine mods were evaluated. At the end of the season, the race team built up the 1975 #5 PDC-spec race sled to these final specifications to go into the Mercury product archives, which is the sled currently on display at the Hall of Fame.

1975 PDC Race season highlights:

I won the 440X class at the first race of the year held in Rhinelander, Wi. Stan qualified for the Eagle River World Championship race with his 440 Mod sled against the 650cc competition and finished 3rd overall. As a team, we had many podiums throughout the year, and finished strong at the USSA World Series in Weedsport, N.Y. I won the Mod 340 class, Stan won the Mod 440 class, and I finished 3rd in the same 440cc class, but on my 340 Mod sled.

Doug Hayes, Jim Bernat at Eagle River

Mechanic Bob Mendlesky, Doug at Weedsport

Setting the 1976 SnoTwister specs:

Dick Bahr had finalized the future 1976 liquid-cooled production engine port timing and we raced those specs in our free air engines to confirm them. We also were running the basic chassis and suspension specs that would be incorporated into the 1976 production SnoTwister models.

After the race season was done, we had to transfer the race sled design direction to the 1976 SnoTwister specifications. We had finalized the front bulkhead and crossmember design earlier in the year but were still validating the rear suspension and waiting for prototype test tracks from Goodyear. Our final validation test was done on Lake Winnebago in late March after we received the Goodyear tracks. Very late that Spring, we went to Crandon and did durability testing on Lake Metonga, then out to Cooke City, Montana for more durability and high-altitude carb and clutch calibration.

Mercury would make 250, 340 and 440cc sleds to compete in the USSA stock racing classes. To race as production-stock sleds, they had to meet all government requirements for trail usage, including the sound and lighting requirements. Dick had been working on the new Kohler liquid cooled engine specs all summer and was getting great power on the dyno.

Dick had made his target horsepower numbers for each of the engine sizes, but after running the pipes into the muffler, some of the performance was lost. After looking at an existing silencer design from Donaldson muffler, he had an idea to reverse the flow of the exhaust through the silencer and there was very little power loss with that layout. We were all set to release the pipe specs to make the production tooling when Les Cahoon received a tip from someone at Kohler that Arctic Cat could not get the horsepower number that they wanted for their 1976 Kohler-powered 250cc stock racer. If Arctic Cat could not meet their horsepower target, they would not purchase the Kohler engines! So Kohler called Les and said Kohler needed the final Mercury pipe specs to do durability on the new-for-1976 250 liquid cooled engines.

About a week after Les released the pipe specs to Kohler, Les received a call that our pipe specs went right to Arctic Cat so Kohler could get the contract to sell them engines! Dick went back on the dyno and changed pipes again and came up with another two horsepower for the Mercury 250cc engine. Gaining a two-horsepower increase on a 250cc engine, one that still met the production sound level requirements, in about a week was a very big deal!

1976 SnoPro race sleds:

Lyle Forsgren calls a team meeting

Building a future that didn’t happen:

Hearing that the Mercury pipe specs were sent to Arctic Cat, Les said “We will have our own engine design! No one at Mercury was to give Kohler any information on our engine work from this day on!” – and he started designing a Mercury-only snowmobile engine. By the fall of 1975, Les designed an engine with the parts to be sourced from Europe and then assembled at Mercury. The overall engine design was very compact due to its short stroke (vs. Kohler). Specific design features included a bridged exhaust port, an intake port design that allowed a reed valve or piston port option (Two different intake systems allowed the engine to be used for both consumer and racing) and a high mass Thunderbolt ignition system with the greater degree of ignition advance/retard timing built into it.

At the end of February 1976, Les had the first-generation prototype engines running on the Mercury dynamometers. Unfortunately, Dick was only able to do preliminary dyno runs on this engine and there just wasn’t enough development time before Brunswick shut the snowmobile division down.

Dick had also been working on the latest Kohler engine specs for the 1977 production race sleds and needed to validate the engine specs on a sled. It was decided my brother Gene would do this test. Dick sent dad the cylinder heads and pipes to build Gene an engine. They received the components one week before the Wisconsin Governor’s Cup race in Wausau Wisconsin. Stan and I also went to that race on Saturday morning. When we got to the track, Gene and dad still didn’t have the sled completed, so Dick, Jerry Witt and Bob Mendlesky went to work on it. Dad and I pitted for Gene with his stocker as the rest of the HPG guys finished up on Gene’s Mod sled. Dick was heat-cycling the new engine to break it in on the jack stand and we used Gene’s Mod III qualifying heat races to dial in the clutch and carb setting – Dick was on the jetting, and I was on the clutching. Gene won his Stock and Mod Stock races with a stock 440 and then went on to win Mod III with Dick’s new engine specs.

In the special Governor’s Cup race, Stan and I would run our factory Mod III SnoPro sleds against Gene on his sled with Dick’s new engine specs. Gene hole-shotted the group and led every lap. Stan was second and I was third and Gene’s teammate, Paul Spencer, was forth. Dick’s 1977 engine specs have been verified!

Lyle set us to work on the 1977 Sno Twister Production race sled chassis and suspension designs, along with more cross-country racing to develop a better consumer trail sled. For the 1976 race sled, we had moved the radiator down in front of the engine to lower the center of gravity, tried a shorter wheelbase by using a different bulkhead, we installed tracks as short as 101”, and ran many different rear skids. We took the bulkhead dies we had made for the 1975 PDC sleds and pulled the front cross tube back around 2 inches. On the rear skid, we tried split front and rear torque arms so there would be more independent movement of the rails when turning, along with different front torque arm lengths and locations. By the end of the 1976 race season, we decided we went too short on the overall wheelbase and track length, so we planned to go longer wheelbase and longer track for our 1977 SnoTwister production models.

Lyle Forsgren also decided to develop a cross-country sled direction, so we didn’t travel east to race those oval events. We built sleds for the Winnipeg to St. Paul 500-mile race, the Heartland Grand Prix, Soo I-500 enduro oval race and the Mackinac City 150-mile enduro oval race. The sleds for the Winnipeg race were 1975 free air SnoTwisters. Tom Wehner, Mercury’s snowmobile race support manager, finished in the top 10 with one of the HPG sleds.

At the Mackinac City 150 race, we put a 110-inch TrailTwister rubber track and a modified rear suspension into one of our SnoPro 440 sleds. I qualified fifth and we led every lap of the race to win.

Victory photo at Mackinac 150 race

Tell us about the Soo race:

Stan and I told Lyle that we just had to run the Soo. It’s basically a 500-mile cross-country race so we could test our cross-country design direction, plus it’s an awesome event – you get to race all day! In 1976, the maximum engine size was 650cc, but the largest engine Mercury had was a 440. No problem, we put a liquid cooled 440 Kohler in the 1975 SnoTwister cross-country chassis, a radiator, big windshield, 110” rubber track and a SnoPro quick track-change chaincase. Our 440cc engine was basically stock, but with tuned pipes.

To win, we knew we had to run consistent, fast laps all day, but we also wanted to be prepared for any problems. We loaded up extra engines, hoods, tracks, skis, clutches – you name it, we had it! Lyle sees everything laid out, shakes his head, and says “I thought the plan was to run consistent lap times and NOT have any problems! You guys have enough parts to build another sled!!” He was right, we did have enough parts along to just about do that.

One example of our race prep – we ran Arctic hex drive clutches, and they would wear over that many race miles. I pre-ran the sled and calibrated three spare drive train sets, consisting of drive, driven and v-belt, tuned to run either above, below, or right on the peak power RPM. If we were losing RPM due to clutch wear, we could come in and change out the complete drive, driven and belt as a system. We could change this out just as quick as it took to refuel the sled and we were good to go.

We had a great crew at the Soo. Stan, Jerry Witt and I were the drivers, and Dr Les Calhoon, Dick Bahr, Bob Mendlesky supporting us in the pits. We qualified thirteenth for the race and stayed in the top-10 pretty much the whole race. The 650 guys would pass us, but they would eventually breakdown or crash and we just kept on going. We took the lead around the 150-mile point and the race looked well in hand. However, around lap 350 we pitted and the chaincase was out of oil! We topped it off, but it was dry again by the next fuel stop. We knew this was a big problem – the chain is just not going to last! Dick grabbed a tube of grease, packed the chaincase full, put the cover back on and away we went!

Around lap 470 it was dark, snowing hard, and the race was red-flagged. The officials asked the racers if we should continue or stop as-is due to poor visibility. Stan was in the lead, so he said that call was up to the other racers. Everyone agreed it was too dangerous, the event was called, and we won the race.

Mercury IFS development direction:

During the 1976 race season we, at the Mercury HPG group, saw the advantage of IFS front suspension as raced by Villeneuve and Gordon Rudolph, so we planned to evaluate the IFS advantages. Our design direction was to develop a cross-country long travel race sled. The basic layout of the IFS front suspension was drawn up and it was to be of the strut design. Our rear suspension travel target was 6 inches of travel – which was a ton more travel than we had on our oval sleds. I had the first drawings of the rear suspension at the HPG shop and had already completed the track tension validation study and was waiting for the OK to build this IFS cross-country sled when Lyle told us that all efforts to keep the Mercury snowmobile division had been exhausted. That’s when we all knew that the Mercury snowmobile business was done. With the demise of the Mercury snowmobile business, Stan, Dick Bahr and I met with LeRoy Lindblad and Larry Rugland, and we all agreed to come to Bombardier and work with them on the new Ski-Doo IFS race sleds.

It’s amazing how much Mercury product development you did through racing! What keeps you busy now?

After I stopped racing in 1979, My wife and I had an outdoor power equipment business until we sold it in 2015. We have two sons that went to work in the snowmobile industry. Ryan, our oldest son, worked for Arctic Cat for 18 years before moving to Polaris, now in his 5th year there. Ben, our younger son, has worked for Fox Shoxs, Walker Evans Shocks and is now at Polaris. Currently, Ryan is the manager of development and calibration of 2 cycle snowmobile engines and Ben is the snowmobile technical racing coordinator for snowmobiles.

I am still involved in snowmobile racing by helping my son Ben with the two teams he supports at the Soo I-500 races. I have been doing fuel calculation and pit stop strategies for the Bunke and Faust teams at the Soo since 2012, and for the 2014 race I asked my brother Gene to help. Debriefing after that race Ben, Gene and I decided to research the benefits of Aerodynamics, because the sleds were running over 100 MPH. Gene and I started with just one Aero part for the Bunke and Faust teams in 2014 and now we have complete Aero Body works kits for the Soo sleds, available to any of the Polaris teams that would like to run them.

Thank you for covering some of the Hayes’ family snowmobile history, your Polaris, Mercury, and Ski-Doo racing efforts, and how your next generation continues to add to the Hayes’ family accomplishments. Congratulations on your well-earned induction into the Snowmobile Hall of Fame.

Story by Greg Marier for SnowTech Magazine

[Doug]

[Doug]

[1995xcr600]

[Sled_Hed]

[mnstang]

This must be from 96 or 97

Choppers Sorels Bieffe

 

 

[Bontz]

On 12/7/2023 at 9:03 PM, ICG said:

One of Arctic Cats better days

 

 

Damn - that picture brings back some great memories of the mid-to-late 80's.  Between that sled, the EXT that followed it and then the Wildcat .. those are some of my favorite Cat memories.

[Sled_Hed]

7 hours ago, mnstang said:

This must be from 96 or 97

Choppers Sorels Bieffe

 

 

Just giving er!

[sleepybrew]

10 hours ago, Sled_Hed said:

levi lavallee claimed to invent that knee down. he calls it the rossi, but i think he was beat to it

[Sled_Hed]

9 minutes ago, sleepybrew said:

levi lavallee claimed to invent that knee down. he calls it the rossi, but i think he was beat to it

Stan Hayes did it first lol

[Sled_Hed]

[Doug]

Story of buried 1977 Kawasaki SnoPro sleds "Shark" from Vintage sleds.  Long but interesting

A rumor can be a dangerous thing. Here's how.

We've all heard the rumors and stories about how some of the coolest sleds have been destroyed, locked in a warehouse, stolen or mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again. One such rumor has persisted for many years in my neck of the woods: Those 1977 Kawasaki SnoPro sleds were buried, in tact, at some secret Kawasaki facility in Minnesota.

I didn't think much of the story until late in 2000 when I was having a discussion with Jim Beilke, Snowmobile Hall of Famer, current executive editor of Snowtech magazine, and the one man show that originally wrote, photographed, edited and published that entire stack of Race & Rally magazines you've got locked up in your safe.

One thing led to another and we started talking about those 1977 Kawasaki SnoPro sleds. Nasty, green, shark looking creatures driven by Jacques Villeneuve an Greg Channell for just one season. Jim reminded me of the story that when Kawasaki decided to get out of the snowmobile industry, they were afraid of liability issues from having those sleds around. He had heard that they went behind the shop one day, dug a deep trench, dropped them in and buried them.

"Where was this workshop?" I asked. "Shakopee." He replied. My left eyebrow lifted just a bit as I quickly realized that Shakopee is a sleepy little town just south and east of Minneapolis - and not far from my house.

A seed was planted in my head that would eventually grow into a giant, incurable disease.

I had to know where that shop was 20 years ago and where it is today. I had to know if the rumor was true. Jim agreed to call around to some of his old contacts and see if he could verify the story or tell me where the shop was or is. While Jim was searching from one direction, I headed off into another that's easier for me: I searched the Internet high and low for any information about Kawasaki Motors Corporation in Minnesota. Tax records, court records anything. No luck. As far as the Internet is concerned, history began in the 1990's and nothing prior exists. I never did hear back from Jim, but he's always been a very busy guy, so I didn't press it.
The thought I couldn't get out of my mind is that they are just sitting there waiting for me. It's the good old American Dream we've all had of finding lost treasure. You know the story: so-and-so found a very rare such-and-such behind so-and-so's barn, bought it for $20, put a little work into it, won first place at every vintage show, then sold the damn thing for tens of thousands of dollars.

Get rich quick. Win the vintage sled lottery.

I was somehow certain I alone had discovered a major secret; I just needed to find out where they were buried, get a shovel, then sit back and wait for the waives of glory I would surely be afforded.

January 13, 2000

About this time, I had met Mike Decker who raced back in the day and was on the Ski-Doo factory race team for bit. He seemed a nice enough fellow and liked talking about the old sleds. During one conversation I had with him, I asked him point blank: "Do you know where exactly Kawasaki had it's shop in 1976?" I asked. Trying to be coy about why I wanted to know. "Mmm, that would have been Shakopee." He paused for just a bit. "I suppose you know the rumor then?" he said.

Damn it, now I had to let him know what I was up to. No. I thought to myself. I can't risk it. Better to play dumb. "No, what rumor?" I asked.

"I heard they buried those Kawasaki SnoPro sleds behind the shop. Ever hear about that?" "Uh, no, well, I heard something about that.... I stumbled. "I wouldn't doubt it." He said, then continued: "It was very common back then. Ski-Doo buried dozens of sleds that today would be worth a damned fortune!

Shakopee. Now two people had confirmed that the Kawasaki Research and Development center was in Shakopee, but I had no idea where in Shakopee. I went home and dug out the one promo picture I had that I thought might be the Shakopee facility. I also printed out maps of Shakopee and was pleasantly surprised to learn it's a relatively small town and I could drive the whole length and width in just a few minutes. If the building still existed, I was going to find it.
I asked anyone else I met who was involved back then with racing very carefully about the rumor, the Kawasaki Shakopee facility and the race team. None of these people worked at Kawasaki, but they did add more to the original rumors that started to make the actual story harder to guess at. One story said all the sleds were crushed and buried. Another said they used a backhoe and smashed them to bits, then buried them. Many insisted that all were crushed but one, and some thought the one sled was either hidden, stolen or being stored by Kawasaki Corporate headquarters in California for liability reasons.

Another thought kept driving me nuts. I couldn't have been the only one to have heard this rumor! Others must know about it, and someone, in all this time, must have hunted this facility down. For all I knew they could have already dug them up and had them in their garage for many years now. Still I had to press on. I had to find out for myself.

On my first trip to Shakopee, I looked in all the industrial sections of town. I was searching for a building that had bricks that were all perfectly lined up, as in the 1977 promo shot. This seemed to be a good approach, as most brick buildings in Minnesota have a staggered brick pattern. The other clue would have been the tree in the background of that promo shot. It's down in a hole, it has very definite cuts on some branches, and it's a very big tree. If time, fire, wind or man hadn't destroyed that tree, I knew it would be a good clue. After several hours of driving around, I never found a building with that brick pattern. I began to assume the building had been torn down, re-bricked or some how covered.

It was a nice Sunday afternoon, so I stopped in to the only store that was open; the local hunting shop. After standing around for several minutes while the store owner helped the large number of hunters with the animals they had brought in, I finally managed to ask him about the facility.

"I know this is a strange question, but do you have any idea where the old Kawasaki facility used to be?" The room went silent. All eyes turned towards me. I became very aware of the amount of fire power in the room, of which I had none.

A gentlemen at the far end of the store positioned himself so he could see me and cocked his head to one side. "Why would you want to know that?" He said, scrunching his brow at me. How do I explain this without sounding like a complete wacko who wants to dig up 20 year old snowmobiles? "Just curious, I was a big fan of the old Kawasaki racing sleds" I said. Not a real lie, but not exactly the whole truth. After all did he need to know the whole truth? He straightened his head out and grinned a bit and said: "Hell everyone knows where that was. Damn sleds were louder then hell!" An uncomfortable giggle broke out amongst the hunters. "There ain't nothing there though - it's some other company now."
We continued to talk for a bit and between this guy and the shop owner. They told me stories about the testing of the sleds that went on at a near by lake. They told me about all the noise complaints. These were some very nice people, all very happy to help a complete stranger. God I love Minnesota. A crude map was formed. I thanked them all profusely and tried not to act too excited as I raced out the door to my car. Damn this was exciting. I found it just by asking, didn't get shot, and didn't get involved in a scene from Deliverance.

Shark Hunting Part II
The Sharks In The Day
December, 1976 - Alexandria Minnesota, the Dayco Holiday Spectacular.

My morning had been fantastic. Since October I had been reading about and memorizing photos of the 1977 Polaris factory race sleds. The Polaris promo picture showed a new leaf-spring 440 twin SnoPro sled that frankly was the sexiest thing I had ever seen since Valerie Bertinelli on the tv show One Day at a Time. When I saw the new Polaris sled, combined with the knowledge that Polaris had an amazing new driver by the name of Brad Hulings, I knew Polaris was going to have a great season. On this particular morning, I actually got to see the sled up close and personal.

That little Polaris was 10 times was cooler than I thought it would be.
Valeri Bertinelli
Only a couple SnoPro sleds could compete in the looks department with Valeri. Kawasaki's entry was one of them.

Everyone I talked to that morning was making a big deal about the Polaris race sleds with the new weird suspension in the front. I could have cared less. That leaf-spring sled was much cooler looking to me. Only one thing was making me nervous for the Polaris squad that morning: My first look at the Kawasaki SnoPro sleds.

The Kawasaki's looked every bit as good as my beloved leaf spring Polaris, perhaps better! I watched as the Kawasaki crew unloaded them. They were tiny. The gold tunnels shined in the early morning sun. The green hoods were polished to the point of being blinding. I got a sick feeling in my stomach that these machines were going to kick some serious ass.

I would have the same sick feeling several years later when Valeri Bertinelli married Eddie Van Halen. I could never decide what was worse: A drug-addled rock star with my Valeri, or the nagging thought that Valeri would become a Yoko Ono and ruin my beloved Van Halen.

As it turned out, Brad Hulings, Steve Thorsen, Jerry Bunke and Polaris ruled the day. They had dominated at the first race that season in Ironwood Michigan, but no one paid much attention; Ironwood had bad weather, and everyone had bugs to work out. By the time the big 15 lap 440X feature race was ready to roll, Hulings had already sewn up the coveted Hetteen cup, and it the boys from Polaris had earned a new nickname: The Midnight Blue Express, playing on the fact that their new sleds went around the corners like a train on rails.

The 440X race started off scary for us Polaris fans. It wasn't a red white and blue machine in the lead, it was a green one! Jacque Villenueve was out handling and out motoring the Polaris sleds! It was very exciting for all the fans there, myself included: After the Polaris domination early in the day, Kawasaki was the under dog - much like Brad Hulings had been the underdog one year ago in this very same 440X race on his Mercury Snow-Twister.
But just like Brad's historic run against the big factory boys in a big money feature race, Jacque went down to mechanical troubles. A small piece of debris got lodged in his fuel line, and the race was all over. But he likely wouldn't have won anyway; with each lap, Jerry Bunke had been gaining ground, and just a few laps into it, Jerry was passed Jacque, as was Brad Hulings before Jacque lost power. Jerry Bunke, (most people had never heard of Bunke at the time) would go on to win the race, with Hulings and Polaris team mate Jim Bernat rounding out the top three. It was a bitter disappointment for the Kawasaki team. A big early season win would have gone a long way in getting the corporate office more interested in racing.

As the season went on, it was more of the same with the Kawasaki team; always a brides maid, never a bride. Polaris just plain out-gunned them and everyone else. Corporate Kawasaki was not happy with the expenses of racing; starting with the $1,500 a piece leather suits that team manager Gary Mathers bought for everyone, to the motor development, to the travel and race entry fees - it was too much. Corporate pulled the plug before the season was over, but did let the team finish out at the final race in West Yellowstone.
Several people saw the Kawasaki Shark's loaded onto the truck in West Yellowstone in March of 1977. But where they went from there is more than a little speculative. It would be 23 years later before a SnoPro fan who watched them race in Alexandria earlier that year would be on the trail to find out what really happened to those sleds.

Shark Hunting Part III
The Kawasaki facility in Shakopee, MN.

After getting my map from the guys at the hunting shop in downtown Shakopee, it took me only a few minutes to find the old R&D shop, just outside of Shakopee. It's across the street and down a bit from Shakopee's big amusment park, Valley Fair. I really was stunned to see the building, still standing, and looking damn good for being 26 years older then when I saw it first in the promo picture. This must kind of be how they felt when the cameras first found the Titanic! The bricks matched up as in the photo, all neat and in tidy rows. The building was the shade of puke green as I had guessed it would be. It looked like the paint was fresh.

From this promo shot, I noticed the bricks and the tree. I found the facility almost 30 years later - The second shot shows the tree is about the same.

It was now owned by a company called ChemRex. Damn! a chemical company will never let me dig in their backyard! They for sure have stuff buried back there they don't want the Environmental Protection Agency to know about. It was Sunday, no one was around, so I drove out back. There was the tree, looking almost exactly like it did 26 years ago! Amazing. It didn't seem like it had even grown any. I took some pictures and headed back for home, unsure of my next move.

How do you approach a chemical company and ask for permission to dig in the back yard?

Back at my desk Monday morning, I decided to just call and see what happens. I had nothing to lose. If worse came to worse and the Chemical company didn't want nothing to do with digging in the back yard, I'd formulate a plan to go out in the middle of the night and do it when no one was looking.

At ChemRex, I asked to speak to anyone in charge of the building, or who had been with the company for a long time. On the phone, I got Larry Benjamin, an executive from ChemRex. I asked him if he knew anything about his building having once been the property of Kawasaki Motors. "Yeah, I know quite a bit about it. When we bought it we had to clean up their mess. What are you looking for?" "Well", I said, "I think they were testing snowmobiles there and..." "You aren't looking for buried treasure are you?" He interrupted."Those snowmobiles are long gone".

The old test track - stomping grounds of the Sharks - in the back (behind the tree) is still visible.

Well, that cleared up my thought about someone else having dug them up. I was a little late on this story. "What do you mean?" I asked, expecting to hear the worst. I figured my hunt was all over. "Those snowmobiles cost Kawasaki a whole lot of money. We heard that rumor before we even bought the building". Now I knew it was over. But on the chance that I was wrong, I asked if we could have a meeting and discuss it further. We set it up for early the next week.

I met Mr. Benjamin at the ChemRex office the following Monday. He smiled and shook my hand, a confident looking man who didn't seem real happy about me taking this time out of his day. I told him I was grateful he could indulge me. We talked about he facility, which they bought from the Conklin Company in 1992. Kawasaki had built several lead lined chambers for testing engines, as well as a pool for testing Jet-Ski's. They also built a track in the back for testing snowmobiles. I drew a map with his help, and he showed me the spot were the snowmobiles were buried. Past tense. Were buried.

"You said they were buried. What happened to them?" I asked, and that's when he told me the real story behind the rumor. "We heard the rumor before we bought the building. Being a chemical company, we felt it important to clear up any environmental issues before we moved in, so we decided to report the rumor to the county. The county was very interested and sent someone out right away".

A better shot of the tree that hints at the secret of where the Sharks are.

An official from Scott County came out with a metal detector and began searching. The metal detector found traces, big traces of metal just below the surface near the old race track behind the facility. They contacted Kawasaki, and ordered them to dig them back up. "And that's all I really know about it. Scott County got a hold of Kawasaki, and before I knew it, they were out with backhoes digging stuff up. They hauled it to the local dump. We got it signed off, clearing the way for us to buy the building and we felt we had done our duty towards the environment".

Wow. The damn rumor was true! Maybe they were still at the dump? I thanked him profusely for his time, then quickly headed back to my office, barely able to concentrate on driving as I thought about what I had learned. Maybe they were still in the dump? Maybe there was still a chance I could find them?

After sending out some emails, I got one back a day or so later from Scott County. Yes, they had a record of an environmental incident with Kawasaki, and yes, all I had to do was call a Mr. Peter Schmidt, and I could get all the info I needed. After all, it was all a matter of public record. I made an appointment to see him the next day.

Looking forward to the 1977 racing season is the new Kawasaki SnoPro team. Back row: Jerry Witt, Gary Mathers, Richard Unce, Ray Tuggle. Front row: Jacque Villenueve, Greg Channell.

 

Shark Hunting Part IIII
The Possible Burial Ground of the Sharks
Peter Schmidt of the the Scott County (Minnesota) Environmental Health Agency faxed me the total report he had on file about the incident. They tell the tale of what happened to these historically interesting sleds.

The Burial Grounds?
1988 Paperwork from Scott County clearly shows that snowmobiles were found and dug up at the Facility. Where these the Sharks?

The story goes like this: Lee Markgraf of Kawasaki industries was notified by Scott County that the current owners of Kawasaki's old Research and Development facility, The Conklin Company, had heard a rumor that they (Kawasaki) had buried snowmobiles there.
Kawasaki executives and their lawyers decided that the best way to deal with it was to just admit it, dig them up and dispose of them properly. Scott County was to monitor the progress and removal, and make sure no hazardous materials was left behind. According to Peter, they first checked with metal detectors and marked the property. They then brought in the backhoes to begin digging.

This is the text of a hand written notes from the Scott County official on the scene the day of the dig, whose name is not on the slip:

"10-26-88. Pete visited the site with Lee Markgraf and Dave from Turner excavating. Complete and incomplete snowmobiles found in one small location - no oil or gas smell in tanks of vehicles, (verified by Pete, Dave & guy from Braun engineering before). Ten other holes dug around this hole - no evidence of previously disturbed soil - or of any solid waste."
Markgraf then sent a letter back to Scott County with the receipt from Turner Excavation for $1,991.75, and a receipt from the Louisville Landfill. Kawasaki had done the right thing and cleaned up their mess. Mr. Schmidt completed a report and mailed a copy back to Kawasaki. Case closed. But note that the report says complete and incomplete snowmobiles. Could this mean that an in tact Shark was sitting in a landfill here in Minnesota?

1977 Kawasaki Race Sled
I asked Mr. Schmidt if it was okay if I were to review the file in person. He agreed, and met with me at 8:00 the following morning. Peter was very good about telling me everything he could remember about the disposal of the sleds. "We were concerned about gas having been dumped there. We didn't know about the snowmobiles until they were dug up. I just sniffed them, literally, for gas fumes, but found none. They were hauled off to the Louisville landfill, we signed off on it, and that was that".
So they Kawasaki SnoPro sleds were in the Louisville landfill? Images of the landfill owner having the sleds, or the sled parts in his garage, must have made me appear to Mr. Schmidt as a deaf, dumb & mute. "Is that landfill near here?" I grabbed my pen in anticipation of my next stop. "It's just a mile or two away, but now it's called Demcon." No need for directions, I'll just call Directory Assistance after I leave, I thought. I put the pen back in my pocket.

"Do you remember seeing any hoods - particularly any green hoods?" I asked. "Mmm. Not really, I just took pictures of the holes and smelled for gas - there are pictures." He walked off in search of the file.

Pictures! Bingo! Jackpot! KA-CHING! If I couldn't find the sleds, pictures would work nicely to prove once and for all that the sleds were here. The madness could end. Peter returned in just a moment with a packet of slides. He handed them to me, and I put them up to the light eagerly awaiting the first view of the Sharks since 1988.

"I remember seeing yellow hoods. I don't recall anything green". Peter added. What's the chance that a green hood, after being buried for nearly 10 years turns yellowish after time? I thought. I couldn't see anything in the slides but some bits of parts mixed in with dirt. No clear shots of a sled at all. I asked if he would allow me to borrow the slides, long enough to have them printed as regular shots that I could see better.

"They are public property, but it's not customary to let people check them out". He said. I did my best sad puppy face. "How fast can you have them back?" He added. "About two seconds after I get them back from the photo place". "All right then." I shook his hand with a smile and headed back to my office, some 20 minutes from Scott County.

On the way back, I put in a message at the Demcon dump. I asked for someone named Dave that had worked their since it was called the Louisville Landfill. Yes, there was a Dave like that still working there, but he was not available, could I get your number and have him call you back. I gave her the number, we exchanged some Minnesota Nice chat, and I closed the cell phone shut. Damn. They might well be in the dump. There's still a chance I could find enough of them to restore one or more of them. But the pictures were puzzling. I couldn't see much, but what I could see in no way resembled the Sharks. I had to get them developed from the slides and blown up. Fast. I dropped them off on the way back to my office for 1 hour development.

My quest was nearing an end, I could feel it. I will have solved the mystery. The blown up photos would reveal all. They were at the Demcon landfill. I'm not afraid of no rats! I would spend the next few weekends looking for them at the dump. I would find the elusive Sharks!

I went back to my office and did my very best to pretend to be working for exactly one hour. I was pretty proud of myself thinking I may really have found them. Victory was mine!

I would soon discover I had indeed achieved victory, but in the wrong battle.

Shark Hunting Part V
Four Feet of Clay
"Mr. Preston, your pictures are ready". The voice on the other end of the line was from my new friend at the nearby photo developing shop. In the course of working on vintagesleds.com, I had become a regular customer, developing 2-3 rolls of film per week. I probably paid for her new car.

"Thank you, I'll be right there". I put my cell phone down and went back to feigning interest in the meeting I was in. Something about a Mission Statement, and adding yet another product to our line of 25 unrelated products, blah, blah blah.

The Burial Grounds?
You can see what is left of a snowmobile in this photo... but what was it?

Actually, I couldn't think. I had to see those photos now. I summoned up my best get-the-meeting-over-with-quick skills and within minutes was off down a Minneapolis skyway towards the photo place. It was near lunch time and it was cold outside, making the skyway very crowded. A crowded skyway is good. Crowded skyways tend to be crowded by very good looking women. Knock down, drag-out fabulous babes. Models. Bankers. Sales persons. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors and builds. A veritable smorgasbord. Yummy. But I digress.
Finally, I was sure, I could see what was left of the Sharks. I got the photos, paid the fees, smiled at my photo finishing friend, and headed for the nearest well-lit area so I could take a look at the pictures.

My heart racing, I tore open the cardboard the photos were neatly packaged in and I began flipping through them, staring intently at each of them for about several minutes. The more I flipped and stared, the more my fast beating heart began to grind to a slow, plodding thud.

In disgust, I dropped the photos to the table. I had to conclude that the photos are inconclusive.

The Burial Grounds?
From this photo you can see how many places they were able to dig up sleds from.

I muttered a curse to myself and headed for the nearest Caribou coffee shop. I got a hot cup of java, pulled up a chair and stared at the pictures more. The coffee helped ease my disappointment as it warmed me up. You can see a lot of parts, but no complete snowmobiles as the report had said. I see a chassis, upside down with an IFS system. But it doesn't look like the ones on the Sharks. I can can see what looks like parts of a hood, but it's yellow, not green. I can see a seat, it doesn't match the Shark seats. I see gas tanks. No match. I see all kinds of parts. None of them look like Shark parts. Damn it! I have to conclude their is nothing in these photos that positively identify this debris as the my SnoPro sharks. Nothing.
Late in the afternoon one day later, I got a call from Dave at the Demcon dump. More bad news. He didn't remember any snowmobiles coming in the dump. Worse, the Louisville Landfill was condemned by the State of Minnesota sometime in the early 1990's because it contained both domestic and commercial garbage and was probably hazardous. They ordered it covered with 4 feet of clay. It's an area about 8 city blocks square, covered in 4 feet of clay. Even if you had the time and the resources to dig in search of the sleds, Dave informed me that the state would never, ever allow digging in that area, probably for a period of twenty years or more.

How long does it take for aluminum and fiberglass to decompose?

So that was it. End of the trail, end of the story. The Sharks are buried in a dump that can't be messed with. I can finish my story and put this rumor to rest, once and for all.

But the pictures bothered me. They did not prove it was the Shark sleds were the sleds buried there. They just proved some snowmobiles were buried there. I was staring at the Scott County report later that day and decided to just check if Lee Marcraft still worked for Kawasaki. After doing some digging, I finally found Lee, working for Victory (Polaris) Motorcycles in Wisconsin. To my joy, he was willing to talk about the Kawasaki's as he no longer worked for them.

"Oh that damned rumor!" He laughed out loud. "That damned rumor about snowmobiles being buried behind that plant has followed me around for decades, and caused me more damn grief!" he continued on. He told me the story much the same way Peter Schmidt of Scott County had told it. The building was being sold and Kawasaki decided to clean the mess up. The sleds were buried for liability reasons. They were crushed with a backhoe and buried just a few feet down. "Yeah, I suppose you don't want consumers driving any race sleds around huh?" I asked.

"Race sleds? Oh hell no. These were prototype consumer sleds. Kawasaki was going to be the first to introduce consumer IFS sleds. We had them all ready to go into production when Corporate pulled the plug on the snowmobile program". A mild pause as I collected my thoughts. "Then what happened to the race sleds?" I asked. "Don't know. I never saw them. But I do know the guy at corporate that would know that. Let me give him a call, and I'll call you back. He'd know what happened to them."

The trail was hot again!
The Burial Grounds?
One of the mechanics working hard, Alexandria Minnesota.

I waited patiently for a week and tried Lee again. He had not heard from the person who might know more about the Sharks, but would keep trying. He did tell me that when Kawasaki had the facility in Shakopee, one of the SnoPro sleds was stolen. But the moron who stole it parked it in his front yard and was arrested and the sled recovered within a few hours of its disappearance. I never heard from Lee again, nor have I tried to contact him again. I later found out who he was trying to contact at Kawasaki. It was, I believe, his former boss. After several frustrating days of trying to find this guy within Kawasaki, I was told he had quit just a few days before.
As the temperature dropped here in Minneapolis, the trail seemed to be getting colder. So I decided to start contacting anyone associated with the Kawasaki race program. First on my list: Ray Tuggle, the teams primary engine builder. One thing I've learned from a few years of digging up old race sleds: The drivers don't remember much. The mechanics, on the other hand, remember amazing details.

Shark Hunting Part V
Shark Details With Ray Tuggle

Close up of the leaf spring version without the hood. Note the 4 plug motor.

At this point in my treasure hunt, I had given up on trying to be sneaky. I decided to just be bold and hope that mighty forces would come to my aid. I decided to go directly to those that were involved with the Kawasaki race team.

I tried Jacque Villanueve first. Not having a clue where to find him, I emailed the only email address on his website. It turned out that that email address was answered by his web designer, and I used the term designer loosely. He was a snotty little puke with an attitude. "Mr. Villanueve doesn't allow for direct contact" he wrote back. So I asked if he could forward a note on to Jacque. "As an act of charity, I suppose I could do that" I'd heard on more than one occasion from more than one person that Jacque is very nice guy. I was pretty sure this guy was on a power trip as Jacque's gatekeeper.

I composed a nice, short email and asked him if he knew where the sleds might be, would he mind being interviewed about them for the web site, and what could he tell me about the sleds themselves?

I've sent that email to his web guy twice over the next month, and I've received no reply, other than the web designer with "I'm very busy. I'll ask him about it when I can". Jacque, if you read this, please fire your web guy and hire someone more interesting.

This shot from International Falls via Race & Rally magazine give a great amount of detail about the leafer version.

In the meantime, I decided to get a hold of Ray Tuggle and see if he was more talkative. Ray was the Kawasaki racing engine builder and mechanic. To my joy, Ray was more than happy to recall anything he could about his experience there.

Q: How many of the 1977 SnoPro sleds were built?

A: "Each driver had 3 sleds, a 250cc, a 340cc and a 440. The 250cc and 340cc classes had to be factory stock but modifiable, according to the rules. The 440X machines allowed for anything. You know, if you would have asked me these questions ten years ago, I would have probably had to keep my mouth shut, but it's been so long ago now, I guess it's okay to talk about it. The 250 and 340 engines weren't exactly, uh, stock, if you know what I mean! (laughter) I think there was a total of 11 or 12 of them, several as backups or spares."

Note: Since this interview, I've found no evidence of 250cc Kawasaki's. In digging through the old SnoTrack race records, Kawasaki only shows up in the 340cc and 440cc class.

Q: Did they all start out as leaf-springs front ends or some IFS and some leafers?

A: "Greg (Channell) wanted a solid front end. Jacque wanted the IFS. But after Polaris started to clean our clocks, it was apparent to Greg that the IFS was the way to go. By the end of the season, all the sleds had IFS."

Q: None of the leaf-spring models survived?

A: (Pause) "I don't think so. Maybe some of the back-up sleds remained leaf-spring, but it's been twenty some years, I guess I don't remember. Some may have never been converted, but no one was driving anything but IFS by the end of the year. We did work on three sleds having prototype fiberglass springs, but we abandon that as they didn't really work all that well."

Q: What can you tell me about the engine and the clutching in the sleds?

A: "Mr. Fujikawa of Kawasaki Japan specifically required us to run the twin-plug Kawasaki engines in everything except the 440X, where we had the room to experiment more. These were extremely ported engines, with Kawasaki clutches. The 340 and 440's were mostly production cylinders, but the 440X cylinders were all prototypes."

This very rare shot from CJ Ramstad's archive shows the most detail of the IFS version in any photo I have ever seen.

Q: What else was unique about the machines?

A: "We tried a plastic cover for the chain case, but when we ran the first endurance race, the chain case got hot, the cover melted and eventually the chain froze up. It was a good idea, it cut the weight down and allowed us to see at a glance how the oil was in the chain case. It just couldn't take the heat! Other then that, I didn't work much on the rest of the sleds."

Q: I have an old Sno-Week article that says the chassis were actual production chassis - maybe even from a Thunderjet? Is this true?

A: "No. They were custom built by a guy in McGregor, Minnesota.We gave him the specs and he machined them into place."

Note: I think the question was mis-understood. I think the bulkheads were made in McGregor, but from pictures you can clearly see that most, if not all the tunnels are gold 75 Thunderjet tunnels.

Q: Did they have serial numbers on them? Would anyone know what they are?

A: "I don't recall, but in order to get through the inspection process, you would have had to match the engine parts to a chassis, and the only way to do that was with a serial number. They must have had them."

Ray Tuggle. One of the mechanics lucky enough to work on a real Kawasaki Shark!

Q: What was most memorable part of the year (1977) for you?

A: "Earlier in the year, Jacque came really close to winning the 440X championship in Alexandria. He was so close, just a few laps, and it would have made such a difference in the program. But he just coasted to a stop on the back stretch. Dead. We thought he blew the motor, but it turned out to be a small piece of rubber that had clogged the fuel line and stopped the motor. We almost shed tears over that loss, it was so close."

Q: Do you know what happened to the sleds after the year was up?

A: "I helped get them on the truck, and they went back to the facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I would assume they were destroyed there. But I don't know for sure. That was the last I'd seen of them. It would be sure neat to see them again."

Yes, it sure would. I thanked Ray and hung up the phone. Maybe the original story of the sleds being buried was true. Maybe I was just digging in the wrong state!

Shark Hunting Part VI
Shark Hunting in Grand Rapids Michigan
So what was the fate of these remarkable machines?

Gary Mathers
Gary Mathers: He started his career in a big way as part of the Polaris racing team, then headed up the Kawasaki effort before moving on to motorcycles. This photo from the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame.

"I went to California right after the last race of the season, and I can tell you that no sleds went there. None. No production sleds, no prototypes, no SnoPros" Gary Mathers told me just a few days ago. After searching for Gary all over Kawasaki and Honda for months, I finally got tipped off that Gary worked for the American Motorcycle Association. He called me back and sounded genuinely happy to talk about these incredible machines and his experience at Kawasaki.
"We knew the design was good. We had the horsepower. But the chassis was a bit too long and the front a bit too wide. We needed more time and more help to really develop the sled. By 1978, I'm sure we could have had a winner." But as we all know, racing was ended for Kawasaki before the 1978 season could get started.

As far as Gary knew, Duane Aho, the Godfather of the ThunderJet, was likely the guy at Kawasaki that wanted to go racing and got the racing program started. Aho may even have been experimenting with a ThunderJet tunnel on the new Kawasaki when Gary was brought in to replace Aho. They likely built one or two like that, but they were never used.

The search was on for drivers soon after Gary came on board. "We had a heck of a time finding drivers. Everybody that was good was already signed up with another team. Greg came from within Kawasaki and was an easy enough choice. We got lucky when we got Jacque. Jacque was a very hard worker and really tried hard". I asked him about those great looking leather suits the team had. "Truth was, Kawasaki's clothing line was just awful. So I called up Bates and ordered new suits for everyone. I caught all kinds of hell for that. But what else could I do? Everyone kept their leathers at the end of the year. I had mine until I sold them to some fellow who could fit into them. No idea where they went from there".

Of course this means that Channell, whom I've not spoken with, Jacque, & Witt may still have theirs. Ray Tuggle confirmed his leathers are still with him. "Did any of the drivers get to keep a sled?" I asked Gary, hoping to spark a memory. "No" came the answer I didn't really want to hear. "We had no policy for that. Each driver had a practice sled that they could take home to practice on, but they were consumer models, not the SnoPros. They may have those".
Gary's legacy with Polaris in 1974 was an extremely successful race team. He continued on to tell me that he dearly missed the boys in Roseau after moving on to Kawasaki. "They just did what needed to be done. They weren't all hung up on over-engineering everything. If we needed a part, somebody had made it before I had a chance to think about it. Eastman is just very good. He's still kind of my hero".

We talked for some time about his experience at Polaris. I asked finally built up enough courage to ask what he knew about there whereabouts of the Sharks.

"No idea. They probably got destroyed." We continued to talk for awhile about the practice all the manufacturers had of destroying some products by crushing them and burying them. I can only guess that this means they were likely crushed and buried near the Michigan plant, but for environmental concerns, no one at Kawasaki will ever admit that. I would speculate that only a precious few people ever knew they were buried, or where.

There are two executives (one current, one former) at Kawasaki who I believe know the truth about the fate of the Sharks. I finally got information on the whereabouts of the former Kawasaki executive, but to date, he won't return a phone call. The other Kawasaki executive won't return a call either, and I've been trying to call him for almost a year.

Kawasaki Truck
The innards of a real factory race truck.

To date, I still have not heard from either driver. They may know something about what happened to the sleds. I did get an email that Jacque had once given away some parts for the Sharks, some skis, a plastic chain case cover, maybe more. I'm still trying to get those parts or pictures of them. I have left numerous messages for Jacque, and no reply. Same with Channell.
There was one other lead I've been following to no avail. It seems Kawasaki does have a storage facility where they store products for historical purposes. The facility manager there was "kind of sure" there is no snowmobiles at that facility, but he made it clear he would make no effort to look for them, either. Even if Kawasaki did save some sleds, it seems doubtful they would have held on to any of the Sharks, especially when you consider the fact that their racing record was not that good after 1977. But you really can't blame the Kawasaki team for having a bad year. Thanks to the crushing success of the Polaris "Midnight Blue Express" in 1977, no team other then Polaris could claim 1977 as a good year.

It seems like the Sharks were loaded on to the truck after the last race in 1977 and drove off into the fog. From that point forward, the sleds were just plain gone. Like the Bermuda Triangle had swallowed them. Except for the photos and maybe a few parts, there's no proof they ever existed. All the effort and time that was put it to them, including my effort to try and find them over 20 years later seems like such a waste.

I will forever hold out hope that maybe, just maybe, someone will be able to come forth and give you and I some kind of closure. I would prefer an ending to the story where at least one lone surviving Shark is found, under several feet of dust in a locked up warehouse. Or maybe in the garage of someone that was smart enough to steal one and keep it under wraps all these years. Maybe it will wind up in the Snowmobile Hall of Fame where hundred of people every year will be able to see how cool of a sled it was.

There is always the possability!

This whole Shark hunt started for me on a rumor that the Sharks were buried behind a building. It ends on a rumor that they are buried behind a building, just not the one where I was digging.

I sincerely hope that someone who knows the truth will read this article and give me a call. Or an email. Just because my Shark Hunting ends here, doesn't mean the story has to.

[Sled_Hed]

[Doug]

On 1/18/2024 at 3:03 PM, Sled_Hed said:

Had the opportunity to see some of the Warning collection a while back when I sold them some 1990-1/2 RXL parts.  Jaw dropping and a class act family. 

[Sled_Hed]