So where are they now? Well let’s start with one of the big guns: Charlie Lofton’s original 1974 650 SnoPro. Polaris’ Larry Rugland narrowly beat Polaris’ Stan Hayes as top dog in the 650 class that year. But the one guy who kept spoiling the Polaris perfect record in the 650 class by breaking through for a win now and then was Arctic’s Charlie Lofton.
Thirty-four years later, I can report that Charlie’s sled is alive and well. Ed Chestney was kind enough to send me a photo of the sled as she is today, but has requested that I not publish the photo. “I have sent numerous photos to other collectors and I now have a lot of regrets about that. We’ll leave that at that.”
Enough said Ed, I completely understand.
So how do we know it’s Charlie’s 650?
Well, when I first started digging into this, everyone I’d heard who had a real 74 Cat SnoPro said “Call Ed Chestney. He’s got Lofton’s 650″. They’d all seen it, and they all agreed on it. It’s clearly got Charlie’s handlebars on it. It also had Charlie’s number 11 on the tunnel. Can’t argue with that! Ed says she also has the number on the engine crankcase. The cylinders also have factory engravings, but they don’t seem to indicate anything other than a number for reference.
His serial number on this sled is also consecutive to the sled we featured in Part IV, owned by Todd Deloria. Again, these are not normal Cat serial numbers, which indicates special race machines. We know it’s a 650 because of the cutout in the bulkhead to allow the room for the 650 triple engine. It also has the extra holes for the triple pipes.
Ed’s done a lot of research on these machines, and here’s one interesting thing he came up with: “I don’t have information saying how many were built, but there definitely extra bulkheads built. The bulkhead on this machine has been replaced. Clearly early in the year the sleds originally were all painted black, bulkhead and all. At some point, some of them had the bulkhead changed, I know mine did. The bulkhead is unpainted, but it appears the original pan and tunnel was reused. But at some point Charlie’s 650 got a new paint job, the bumper removed, tunnel shortened 2” and the number moved clear to the back of the tunnel instead of just in front of where the bumper was bolted. This is also when the seat was stopped short of the gas tank.”
I can shed some light on this. The first couple of races, Team Arctic got spanked by the much lighter all magnesium Polaris sleds and those tiny little Yamaha’s. After the first couple of races, the sleds went on a diet, and reportedly, up to 50 pounds was removed by removing any part not structurally required, drilling holes and shortening items. I would guess that Charlie’s bulkhead may have been replaces as part of the “lightening” process, or to replace it from damage done in a race – and that it was never painted because paint = extra weight.
Andy Avelis showed me years ago how most of the unique original suspensions were chopped several inches shorter to lighten them up. Later I will be able to show you pictures of one bulkhead so drilled full of holes you could have used it for a lawn sprinkler!
Ed went on to explain the present condition of the sled: “…at the end of the season these were used for test sleds for next year’s equipment. The 75 Z looking suspension isn’t a finished Z suspension at all, it’s a prototype tested in this sled…probably could be more accurately called the 75 PDC test suspension. The extra holes for the pipes were drilled to accept pipes similar to pipes used on the 75 650s… The 74 had a “running board” stinger the 75s all dumped by the chain case.”
Ed also added in this bit that calls into question some other sleds that might be floating around as 74 SnoPros: “I believe there are more now than originally because these extra bulkheads got out and were built to race by independents in the mid 70s. I know of four of these 74 SnoPros that don’t have 74 SnoPro tunnels. They are extremely hard to verify. But I (much like you as I can tell by your restoration thread of your 74 Polaris) have hundreds of pictures and have found ways to verify an original tunnel.”
Ed has a long way to go to restore this amazing piece of history, but he plans on getting it done as soon as a few other projects get out of the way.
“I feel fortunate to have one with so much history still there. Most times these sleds have been raced and improved out by several individuals over the years. This sled sat for nearly 30 years in a shop and was never touched.”
Amen Ed, Amen.
Up next: Davie Thompson’s 340!