Jon Berard (yes that Jon Berard) has started sending me some really cool photos from back in the day. I will be posting them soon – but this one really caught my eye. This is, of course, Larry Coltom and Charlie Lofton struggling to push one of the 75 340cc machines through the mud. Look at the smiles on their faces! They were clearly making the best of dirty situation! Charlie’s 650 will be at the show – it’s a stunning restoration that should not be missed.
Jon is also bringing some never before seen photos of the big Milwaukee mile race wreck in 1973. If you are not familiar with that story, suffice to say the start of an enduro race went very, very wrongong and a lot of people where hurt in that accident. Tons of sleds were completely destroyed. It was pure mayhem. Jon was standing on the back straight away when the sleds started flying through the air. He ran away to avoid being hit – but quickly came back with his camera and snapped away. He’ll have large prints for the Hall of Fame on Sunday.
As is if Charlie Lofton’s 75 650 Cat and a couple of Trapp 75 PDC Yamahas wasn’t mind boggling cool, Kurt Krueger sent in a photo of this beauty to be unveiled at the show this weekend as well. This is a 1973 Ski-Doo Blizzard 650 GR, serial number 00002! Only a handful built, and as you can see it is truly restored back to original… a lot of original parts, looking as close as possible to how it looked when it first left the plant. Only a tiny handful of these sleds are still around today. The restoration was started in March and just completed. But John Jantsch and Loyd Riggs had been gathering parts for the sled for over 7 years! Original pipes, kill swtich and more. Sweet!