Eagle River Reunion Show

400brian · Post by **400brian** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:02 am

Well, I'm back from the North Woods of Wisconsin. The wife's family owns a couple hundred acres 5 mi north of town, with what was originally a hunting cabin on it.
I try to get up there every fall for a weekend. This year I arranged for our weekend to fall on the snowmobile show weekend.

My first, never done this before.

First off, it's 200 miles, so after finishing evening milking, we took off and arrived at the cabin around 3:00 AM Friday, rained all the way.

After a few hours sleep, we went into town for breakfast. Noticed a lot of trailers at the racetrack. Plan for the day was fishing, but it was really lousey weather, so I cleaned on the sleds in the trailer, and went to the Supper Club for fish.

Saturday, I was at the racetrack before the 9:00 AM gate opening, and managed to get the X8 and the RTX in the exhibition building ( pretty much the last sleds in ), everyone else apparently moved in on Friday.

400brian · Post by **400brian** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:17 am

The Deere contingent was noticeably lacking

Besides my X8, I saw only one other Deere, a decent Sportfire. It looks great in the photo, but the hood was cracked in several places. If I remember correctly, it was a low mi original.

By way of comparison, there were 3 production Skiroules, and two racers. I believe these were the same two racers Matt showed us a while back. They were owned by Jerry Kienbaum, Spokane Valley, WA. I also saw no Rupps, or Snow Jets.
Lots of Mercs, and Image had a large display of Merc racing sleds. Was looking forward to talking to "bend over" Bob, but he was at the shop.

If I had been there on Friday, I would have seen who brought in what, and had a chance to talk about their sleds. As it was, I only saw any of that as we started loading them up.

400brian · Post by **400brian** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:20 am

Here's a shot of the famous Eagle River Track in grass.

400brian · Post by **400brian** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 1:47 am

Here is one of the better shots I got of the grass drags. The racing started a bit after 1:00 pm and ran until 5:30 pm, with a couple of 20 min breaks.

It just happened that I was sitting at a picnic table watching the racing with the wife, kids and mother, of one of the guys racing, Brian Frankenberg. Brian did well, running in several classes. Late in the day, his 5 year old daughter ran in the kiddie race ( 125 cc Ski Doos ? ) I wasn't aware sleds this size were even made.

In the photo, there are four sleds racing, ( you can't see the sled behind the wall ).
The sled you can see at the bottom, is being driven by Lea Tanner. She had one heck of a day, as did several women. The Husband / significant other ( ? ) would bring the sleds to the line, Lea would casually stroll up and saddle up. ( she raced in several classes as well ) They did none of the track cleaning and lubing that most did, and when the light turned green, Lea was good at cutting a good light. As the racing progressed from stock to modified classes, the tactics looked clear to me, Lea looked to be around 100 lbs, and she was just flying down the track, waist length brunette hair billowing behind her helmet. In a couple of cases, she had the hotter sled bouncing from ski to ski, but she never let off it, riding it to the finish line, even though it must have been a bit scarey.

It looked to me, that if you want to grass drag, the key is cutting a good light consistantly, and getting a good launch. Most of the time, the sled that came off the line first, won. By the way, Lea won the race pictured.

The funniest thing we saw, was the middle aged, good sized guy, who lost his grip on launch, and went off the back of the sled about 20 feet into the run. I think he was a tad embarassed.

He dusted himself off, walked a bit stiffly to the sled, plugged his tether back in and rode back to the pits.

JDGuy · Post by **JDGuy** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 8:48 am

Brian:

Nice report!!!

RSplash40 · Post by **RSplash40** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 11:03 pm

The guy that owns the sport has been on the boards before. I took pictures of that and his liquifire at the menasha show in ...jan?

400Brian - where do your inlaws have property up there? My inlaws live just off of 17 towards phelps.

400brian · Post by **400brian** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 2:00 am

I was thinking the Sportfire was listed as being owned by a gal, but I'm not absolutely sure about that, but I do think it was from the Fox Valley area, Green Bay- Oshkosh?

The property in Vilas County is north of town, and just east of HWY 17. We are on the Deerskin River. The wife's grandfather first bought land there in the late 40's ( for back taxes ) and eventually wound up with 220 acres. The site had been a saw mill at one time. The area had been pretty much clear cut, and left for dead. The only big trees near by, are the ones around the building site. They cut enough small trees off the property to build the cabin, and much of a house back home. They used a team of horses to pull logs out of largely inaccessable areas, then planted around 10,000 trees on the high ground.

A few years ago, the wife's 2 brothers and us, bought the property, so we are 1/3 owners now.

rgerek · Post by **rgerek** » Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:16 am

The Sportfire is owned by my wife, it took First Place in the 78 and Newer class. We are from Rubicon Wi near Hartford and Horicon.

Thanks

400brian · Post by **400brian** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:30 am

Hey congrats on the trophy!

Glad to hear one of the Deere guys did well.

rgerek · Post by **rgerek** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:00 pm

Thanks,

The was originally purchased by her parents in 1980, then it was sold in 84 to a friend, then it was resold to another person, then we purchased it last year and found out by matching the serial # to the original recept that it was her mother's sled.