Whenever you make something this radical there is bound to be a few bugs. On her first attempt, the suspension didn’t do what it was designed to and instead of going really, really fast, it just went fast and dug some very deep trenches in the ice. When they take their next shot, we’ll let you know. In the mean time, I thought we’d get a picture of the final product up.

At that time I heard a rumor that Paul Groth, Jim and Bernie Warning and Jim Costa of Performance Concepts decided they wanted to go after the world speed
record once an for all.

A month later, I was staring at this baby in the shop as they got started developing it. It took just three months to get it from concept to ready for the ice!

This is a 3,000 horsepower (Yes, 3,000 H.P.), 2,000 pound Twin-Turbo beast that they have named "Frozen Assets".

This is the "other" stop-secret machine that was coming to Waconia. They were going to do some pilot runs and testing there.

However, the crew has decided to take it to Menominee Wisconsin this Saturday to try for the Guinness Book of World Records at the NSSR sanctioned drag race there.

Best of luck to the Paul and the crew – that’s a pretty big goal but if anyone can do it – it’s Paul!

I’m hoping to get a sneak peak picture of it just before the show. Until then you’ll just have to guess and speculate. If your into the really rare stuff, or a fan of John Deere, you do NOT want to miss seeing this one.
Really – once it gets displayed at Waconia, it’s going right back into hiding and may never be seen again!

I’ve been hunting for one with the wheels for a while now and fortunate enough to call on this one at the right time. The connection to this sled started some 5 years ago not long after I bought my first Hornet. I had seen pictures of this sled on the net with the owners name. With a little searching I found a couple of phone numbers and called to see if I could find out anything new about the Hornets or the company that made them, Jet Dynamics. We talked for a while and as far as my poor memory can recall that was the only time I talked to him, until two days ago.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago, when I got a call from Les Pinz. Les and I have talked now and then over the years, mostly me asking questions about Scorpion or Polaris sleds but this time we got to talking about Jet Dynamics and he asked about the serial number of my Hornet. I looked in my "secret" sled info binder as I new I had written it down but as I do often, didn’t write it down in the section marked "Hornet". I new I had it somewhere so after we hung up I started looking through my notes.

I found the serial number along with some other Hornet info and a couple of phone numbers. I had forgotten all about this sled and remembered that when I called years ago it was sitting in the barn with the wheels on it. Since it had been several years since I called I thought I’d see if it was still around. I couldn’t remember which was the correct number so I called the first number, answering machine, left a message hoping someone would call back. I called the second number and gave my name and why I was calling, he laughed and said that’s my dad you’re looking for and thought he still had the sled. It turned out that I had already left a message at his dad’s so I’d wait and hope to get hear from him.

It wasn’t 20 minutes later the phone rings, it’s the first number calling me back. Either I’m going to get chewed out for bothering him or I’ll actually get to talk to another Hornet owner. We talked for a few minutes and I asked "is there any chance this sled is for sale?" He said "Sure. I’ve been thinking about getting rid of it for some time now". Talk about calling at the right time!

We worked out the deal and I left the next morning to go pick it up. I didn’t want this one to slip through my fingers. I left Pittsboro at 4:15 AM and made it to Minneapolis just before 1:30pm, 595 miles.

What a beautiful sight it is to pull in the drive and see this machine sitting there all wheeled up just waiting for me. As all good sled transactions go there’s always stories traded and this was no exception. As cool as this sled is, it was the only one he ever owned but he was into just about everything else that had an engine.

It was a great trip and this checks one off the very top of my "Gotta Find" list.

More photos and the FULL story to come. BOSS CAT III will be at A-1 in Michigan tomorrow!

“How fitting” I thought, as my thirteen year old Cat squeaked out a little noise during her morning stretch. Why was it odd to wake up to that song? Because this was the day that I was to see if a four year old restoration project of mine would finally come to life.

In the first races of the 1977-1978 SnoPro season, each Polaris driver on the Midnight Blue Express (Jerry Bunke, Steve Thorsen and Brad Hulings) had a regular 440 – that is with an aluminum bulkhead. They also each had a 440X machine, as well as each having a 250 and a 340 RXL, which were pretty much the same machines as the independents had.

What I didn’t realize until lately was that there was in fact 3 more made just for Eagle River. Along with the magnesium bulkhead, these machines had lightweight brake disks, shafts, thinner tunnels – whatever they could do to shave a little more weight off the machines.

The first time they hit the ice was at Eagle River. Both Jerry and Steve qualified for the coveted "World’s Championship" but Brad crashed his machine, first corner, first heat race. Brad crashed and fell off, but that machine bounced out of the race track with the throttle stuck wide-open, and slammed into a parked ambulance.

"There was nothing left of it" Brad told me in a later interview. "Nothing?" I said. "Nothing." he repeated.

Jerry Bunke’s Eagle River machine is in the Snowmobile Hall of Fame in St. Germain Wisconsin. Steve Thorsen’s is owned by Rob McMillian, and we have chronicled that sled often here. Brad’s Eagle River sled was destroyed.

But all three 440X sleds survived the years – mostly. Having been a huge fan of the Polaris Midnight Blue Express as a kid, I never, ever in my wildest dreams thought I would own one of these machines.

But way back in 2004, I traded a very, very nice original condition superstock 340 RXL for a rolling chassis that was in Maine. At the time, I was not sure of what it was, other than it was another RXL, but with a magnesium bulkhead. I knew it had to have some kind of history with that.

It took a very long time to find all the missing parts – the hardest part being the not-so-common 440 Polaris triple RXL motor. Once I had that, I started working on the sled.

I was thinking that it would be a fairly quick job; after all, by the time I started in October of 2006, I had pretty much all the parts. I also decided to show the work off as it was being done, and I did so on a thread in the Bull Sessions.

That turned out to be a pretty clever move. I got help from all over the U.S. and Canada. Turns out a lot of people would like to see it done. As of this writing, the Rocky thread is one of the most popular on the Bull Sessions.

But then I started to run into some issues. The big one being time. I just wasn’t able to get out in the garage and get any quality time with the machine. I had no pipes for it, but I looked everywhere to see if I could find an original set. No such luck. If 440 RXL motors are rare, the pipes are just plain non-exist ant. Enter Dave Crumb, who volunteered to take the job on.

This was no easy task; Dave is in New York. The sled is in Minneapolis. So Dave borrowed a set from Jon Pardee who owns Bernat/Hulings 440 machine from 1977. He did a killer job! But the 78 440X chassis is different, and the pipes did not fit exactly right. So off to Willy Ewing they went for a fitting.

I found out a lot of very interesting things about the 440 RXL’s during a conversation with 1978 factory team mechanic Greg Hedlund; There was no standard pipe for these machines. They were all hand built. If one guy crashed, he could not borrow a pipe from another sled. They would not fit.

After getting the pipes on, the next problem was the hood. It just wouldn’t fit right, no matter how much I cut it. In fact I ruined two hoods before getting the third to fit, and it took one more pipe re-fitting to get it right. Hint: The factory team ran their hoods about 2" lower than everyone else.

On the way to get the pipes fitted to the correct hood fitting, we stopped in at Larry Rugland Motorsports and showed him the sled. In particular, we showed him the clutch guard where the phrase "Rocky The Flying Squirrel" is scrawled into the metal, and "Don’t Crash Me" on the handlebars.

Larry looked at the Rocky the Flying Squirrel and got a huge grin on his face. No question what this machine was after that.

"Brad was the lightest yet strongest race driver I ever knew. He was little, but he had barrels for arms. I just started calling him Rocky the Flying Squirrel after the cartoon. I’d always yell at him and say Rocky! Try this! And he’d reply Okay, Bullwinkle."

So this morning, I had some very small tasks to do before starting it. Adjust the track, test the job I did on bleeding the brakes the day before, and make sure it had to anti-freeze leaks. Then put some gas in it. 110 race fuel.

Then it was go time. I swear my heart had not pounded this hard since I could remember. I started to doubt myself. Was every bolt tight? What did I forget?

I ran through a check list in my brain about 20 times. Then I gently blew into the gas tank to get some fuel into the carbs.

The last time this machine ran was March of 1978. Would it indeed run after thirty one years and seven months?

On the 3rd pull it popped and sputtered. On the fifth, it idled for a bit then stopped. Thrilled, I grabbed the camera.

And here ladies and gentleman is pull number six:

It was built originally to sassiest his grandfather in navigating across Dog Lake, north of Thunder Bay Ontario. He was trapping to augment his income, and some way to get across the snow would be a huge help.

The machine sat in storage for 47 years following the passing of the inventor in 1962. Terry pulled it out and discovered just how well it was constructed. Everything that needed grease had a grease nipple, and everyone of them had been filled with grease, keeping all the moving parts working perfect. The motor was still being used on a log-splitter.

Terry’s idea was to put the motor back in and just see how the old girl really worked.

Well that was way back many, many months ago. All kinds of issues cropped up to slow Terry down, but he finally got the old gal running this past spring. He went for a few miles of a ride and the machine worked just great! "It worked just as well as it did back in the 1950’s!" Terry said.

Thanks for sharing a great experience Terry and congrats on owning such a unique piece and getting it running!

Last week I put up a photo of a little moto-ski from St. Germain that I really liked. I didn’t have any information on it, but now I do. It belongs to 14 year old Jesse Hill, Tim Hill’s son. He has owned it since he was 5 years old.

It’s a 1971 Moto-Ski Mini-Sno, and Jesse and his dad found it in a basement in mint condition. After Jesse had it a couple years he decided he wanted a few things done to it. So under Jesse’s direction, Tim put a megaphone on, swapped the Keihen carb to a Mikuni, and had the head cut down for more compression. Tim then made the blue windshield and they added the orange stripe and some of his skateboard decals. The skis were custom made as a gift from Mike Soltis. The rest of the sled has all original paint, seat etc. Time says it is powered by a 230 JLO, it puts out close to 15hp and surprisingly, it really rips!

Thanks for the info Tim and nice sled!

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!