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WINNIPEG TO WACONIA!

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

Just got word that a group of hard core vintage guys are going to take a very long ride – all the way from Winnipeg Manitoba to the big Waconia show!

The idea is that Don Mclennan, Murray Calder and Russell Calder are leaving Winnipeg on January 25th, and planning on making it all the way to Waconia on their vintage Cats. They will
go from Winnipeg to Pembina on day 1, then to Crookston on day 2. Then on to Fergus Falls on day 3 and from Fergus to Waconia on day 4 – following nearly the exact same route as the
original Winnipeg to St. Paul race@

What started out as an idea for a big vintage ride had to be scrapped because of issues with permits, local officials, and other complications. These guys took it on themselves just to
do it for fun.

We’ll be watching from here and reporting on the progress – best of luck guys and man am I jealous! That sounds like huge fun!

Here’s the thread on sledshack and on the Bull Sessions.

Posted in Rider Sleds, Shows | Comments Off

MATT SCHULTZ: WORLD CHAMPION!

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

Just got word that Matt Schultz led the entire race and came out the winner of the 2010 Eagle River World’s Championship for the late model guys.
The race went flag to flag with no reds, and one minor crash at the end – making this the safest Eagle River vintage and late-model weekend
ever!

PJ Wanderschied came in second and Jacque Villenueve we hear came in around 5th or 6th. More details as we get them!

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SKI-DOO TO SPONSOR PVR!

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

Just got the scoop that none other than the Ski-Doo factory is going to add end of the year prize money to the crew at Pro-Vintage racing! We don’t know the amount or details yet, but
it appears that the growing popularity of vintage snowmobile racing has caught their attention. Over 800 entries at Eagle River probably helped! Ski-Doo joins Arctic Cat in sponsoring
vintage – Cat sponsors the spring show for the Hall of Fame in St. Germain. Congratulations to Ski-Doo and PVR! More details as they become available will be forthcoming.

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RAREST OF ALL DEERE COMING TO WACONIA

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

I’ve got the scoop not one, but two incredible machines coming to Waconia. The second one will shock and amaze you, but I can’t say anything more about it now. The first one I can tell you a little about. One of thee rarest John Deere sleds
ever built is going to be inside the building at the show. How rare is it? So rare that it has been locked in a top-secret location for over twenty years! No one has seen it since it was tucked away
all those years ago.

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!

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CRASH ANATOMY

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

In the 440 IFS SnoPro race in Eagle River, things got a little dicey when Jocelyn Lessieur, riding his Ski-Doo made a hard charge into turn three to try and catch leaders Devin Fackrell and Brent Miller. Turned out he went in just a little too hard, and dumped the sled over – and right into Fackrell’s leg. That was enough to give Brent Miller the opening he needed, and brent won the 440 title on a brand new machine from Pro Vintage Performance that he’d barely sat on till that day. Here’s how the crash looked in a series of photos from Scott Anderson.

Oh and if your wondering, Lessieur was not hurt. Fackrell’s leg was as big as a tree trunk from the bruising, but he’s okay and was back at work earlier this week.

crash

crash

crash

crash

crash

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MIKE SMITH PULLS AHEAD IN SNOPRO!

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

Mike SmithReigning Vintage SnoPro points champion, Mike Smith from Wasilla, Alaska, piloted his Cat’s into first place after the races in Eagle River. Mike and his son Adam both benefited from being in races classes so big that all the heat races allowed them extra points for their strong finishes in the finals. But Mike’s lead is pretty slim at this point and anything could happen at the next race, February 5th in Sauke Centre Minnesota.

See the total point standings in the SnoPro section.

Posted in Vintage SnoPro | Comments Off

TONY PETTINELLI, JR: WORLD CHAMPION

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

Tony Jr.

Tony joins a very small group of only two drivers to ever win the Vintage World’s Championship twice!

When the sleds lined up for the driver introductions, one driver, Tony Pettinelli Jr, walked away from his sled. He walked to each driver in the line up, offered up his hand, and wished each driver good luck.

From the beginning, it looked like 2006 winner Jacob Goede was going to find that luck and pull off his second win. His Starfire was clearly fast, but Tony was in second place and kept charging hard to catch him.

"I made a decision to slow down instead of falling off and wrecking the machine again." Jacob said after the race. "By lap 8 I was only going about half throttle."

No one would fault Jacob for backing down; In 2009, when he charged hard over 10 laps, several red flags and restarts, he crashed hard on the second to last lap when hanging on to that monster sled was no longer an option. Besides, prior to the World’s Championship, 3G racing with Jacob and brother Matt driving won every single final they were in, including Super-Mod Liquid 340, Sport-Mod 340, 340 IFS and 340 IFSX. Goede was already having an amazing day.

Tony needed a little break, and his fast-and-steady approach would find him getting closer and closer to Goede as the race went on, passing him on about the 7th lap and holding lead to the checkered.

Brandon Gentz, who was also in the final said “You don’t really drive these big machines. You just hang on." That was evident as each of the drivers picked clean and careful lines, and were obviously respectful of the drivers around them. For the first time in Derby Track History, the final ran the full ten laps without a single crash or a single red flag.

I think that’s a testament to the respect these guys have for the track – and the machines that carry them around.

Our congratulations to Tony and his crew. They did their homework and ran a perfect race!

Here’s a video of the sleds coming to the introductions.

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WHAT A WEEKEND

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

Brandon Gentz

When the last motor is finally shut down after the Eagle River weekend, you get kind of a buzz from everything you witnessed over the last three days, and your mind just keeps replaying highlight reels for days afterwards. This morning, my highlight reels are in overdrive.

The weather was very good all weekend, with a stiff breeze making it seem colder than it was on Friday and for part of Saturday. The track held up very well, there was few accidents, and thankfully only minor injuries on the ones that did happen. All in all, I think a lot of people walked away with a lifetime of memories from this past weekend.

We got a ton of pictures to come. But for now, I wanted to start with the winner of the VintageSleds.com 440 F/A Cup, Brandon Gentz. I had some time to visit with Brandon and his crew that included ed several mechanics, motor builder Norman Ball, personal help, chassis guys, even a personal cook inside the trailer who could cook up a hot dog any way you want it. I was impressed with what a tight-knit group they are, and the obvious team work they have in getting Brandon and team mate Nathan Feuchts sleds running and out front.

Mark Anderson who took a brief hiatus from retirement, borrowed Aaron Johnson’s red hot smoking Polaris and won every heat, quarter final and semi final he was in like it wasn’t even a fair fight. Fast Freddy Smith had his Ski-Doo close to Mark, and it looked like he was holding back… every once in awhile he’d really punch it, and you could see Freddy had a lot more than he was going to reveal fully in a heat race. It’s no secret that these two are not each others biggest fans; So it looked like the race might come down to a battle royal between Anderson’s Polaris and Smith’s Ski-Doo. Classic Polaris Vs. Ski-Doo, with the best of the best driving.

But no one else in that starting field could be counted out! Bill Stull was running fast and furious on his Rupp, as was Tom King on his Polaris sled, and Jeff Lausten on his Yamaha.

The WinnersFrom the start, it looked like all Anderson, all the way. But Mark made it a mere lap when his bulkhead snapped, he threw up his arms coasted off the track in turn two. That left Freddy Smith a wide open run, and he took advantage of it. Fred pulled away, and kept pulling away with each lap… getting close to a half a lap ahead.

At that point, the real race was for second. Gentz, Stull, King and Lausten all battled back and fourth in some of thee most exciting racing I have ever seen. None of those guys was going to give an inch or back off. Bill Stull finally pulled off the "Stull Swoop" in turn 3 and four, taking the high line and passing all three of them in one swift, decisive movement. Bill was taking second place comfortably when a small miracle happened.

Freddy Smith threw up his arm coming out of turn two and coasted to a stop, just in front of his biggest rival, Mark Anderson.

Bill Stull was now leading, and the race was really on. All of them battled as hard as they could. Gentz was gaining a little ground on Stull when his might Rupp started to slow… Bill was slowly burning down! Gentz went flying by, Lausten and King in hot pursuit!

When it was all over, the smooth driving, pacing and strategy of Gentz proved to be the best of the field. He made all the right choices, and all the right moves. At the end, Gentz and Lausten came to the podium to take their prizes, but someone had to let King know he had come in third – he was a little late to the podium, but got there in time for the photos!

All in all, great fun, great racing, great sportsmanship by all, and a great race run by the Derby Crew.

More to come…

800cc Mod Relic Class

Posted in Racing, Vintage SnoPro | Comments Off

STARFIRE AT FIRST SITE

February 25th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

73 StarfireFor about the past ten years, I’ve been slowly getting involved with the vintage snowmobile community. It started out by going to some basic vintage shows where I would walk around and simply comment on sleds that caught my eye. There were really only two ways a sled would catch my eye; either it had to look cool or sound cool! Of course some of the Arctic Cats and Ski-Doos caught my eye, but not like a Polaris. For as long as I can remember, our family has only ever had Polaris sleds, so naturally I took to them—plus they looked so good! So with my basic, non-educated, criteria I quickly found a sled that caused my eyes to widen, and mouth to drop:

The 1973 Polaris Starfire.

I can’t remember exactly when that moment came, but ask my family and they’ll quickly tell you out of all the sleds we’ve talked about, the ’73 Starfire is the only one I remembered. I can’t tell you why I couldn’t remember any of the dozens of sleds we’ve talked about as a family, but I always remembered the good-looking Polaris. After ten years of obsession, the quest for my own ’73 Starfire began.

We were lucky to find an old chassis from a ’73, which could be salvaged and brought back to life with a fresh coat of paint. With a lot of help from Vintagesleds.com people, we found an NOS (New Old Stock) seat, a barely used gas tank, a barely used set of handlebars, an almost new suspension, some skis, the spindles, and original secondary and more. In the span of an afternoon, we had most of the sled put together, even if we didn’t have a motor for it. We ran into one big snag: We had a new mold for the belly pan, and quickly discovered that the new pans were 1 inch too short in the back! Getting the mold fixed would not be a huge deal, but it would take some time – and I wanted this to be my Live on Skis 2010 rider. While my dream of riding a ’73 Starfire for Live on Skis was quickly coming to hault, a miracle happened.

73-79Mike Kollman had a rolling 79 TXL chassis with the 73 hood and pan was for sale. it also had a 73 Starfire steering post and rear suspension. With a great deal in the works, this quickly become the choice for this year’s rider. After pulling it apart in the garage, this was for sure set up for drag-racing, we had a lovely time pulling the studs out of the track and discovering some other minor issues.

But I am excited to say this machine will be ready for LOS ’10 and will definitely turn some heads! Did you know Polaris made a liquid 340 ’73? Just kidding. We stuck a 340 TXL motor in it and got it running in now time!

Last weekend over Christmas break, we got to take the new sled for a "break-in" ride. I can tell you this thing is fast – but a little on the tippy side. We went through a recoil and I broke the steering post on the last ride of the weekend, but once that is fixed, we will be ready for LOS!

Posted in Vintage Living, Vintage Rides | Comments Off

RAREST YAMAHA PHOTO EVER?

January 4th, 2010 by Boy Wonder

My friend Ken Jacobsen sent me a stack of really cool photos last week, and at first, I almost overlooked this one.

This is the ONLY photo I have EVER seen of the 74 Yamaha SnoPro sleds with the hood off – not only that, the heads are off and you can see down the motor. Could this be the only picture that exists of these rare beauties with their shell removed?

Note Polaris driver Stan Hayes doing exactly that! Ed Schubitzke is next to stand working on the sled. Note how crammed in everything is, and how the pipe winds down into the belly pan.

Click to see a larger photo:

74 Yamaha

Posted in Vintage Photos | Comments Off

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