2000 Miles to the Hall of Fame...

[JoeRainville]

Hi Guys,

The Vintage Challenge of 2012 has come and gone, with 45 vintage sleds signed up this year. 7 brave machines failed to ride up to the challenge, but most of us made it, including all the Deere's this year.

My story starts with flying home to NY from Fort Worth on Friday night, Feb 10th to finish my I-500 sled and prep something for the VC. Due to flight issues, I got home at 3:30 am Saturday morning, but got up and hit the Great Eastern Whiteout in Fulton, NY for a few hours when I should have been wrenching. But by Sunday night, the 12th, we had life in the Liquifire I-500 sled. Then the race was cancelled...



So I figured I would take it to the Hall of Fame to get a few miles on her since there was NO snow in NY and my clutching was a guess at best. So we loaded up on Wednesday night, the 15th to start another crazy trek to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. I was actually able to load two of my sleds under their own power, a marked improvement from last year.

[JoeRainville]

Sometime before I loaded my stuff, Adam askes me to haul his back up sled, an 81 Panther. Cari fell in love with the electric start, so I am now looking for a kit for her Sprintfire. Thanks Adam.



My back up sled, on the other hand, was not behaving. It was my 84 Liquifire that Stan Hayes rode on the challenge in 2010 without issue. Turns out the oil in the chaincase looks like metalic paint, and the driven clutch is rusted shut, has the wrong helix and is not shimmed properly for the original wide belt. I took care of most of that, but never got around to cleaning the carbs. She was loaded up, and Cari Deerest and I hit the road at 9:00 PM.

[JoeRainville]

We pulled into St. Germain at about 10:00 pm Thursday night, after making the 1,000 mile ride from NY. In the morning, I rode over to the HOF to attempt the guides ride on my I-500 Liquifire with it's new, but untested motor. But the coolant drain bolt was tight. Very tight. Check the little sucker 10 times.

Once there I got to call to come assist Adam, as "Hell have no wrath like Adam's Fury" was never more true when the sled quit sparking 1000 feet from the entrance to the HOF. Just to add insult to injury, Keith Warning comes by on a Silver Bullet and ribbs on us. I mean, really, when is the last time you saw a Silver Bullet on the trail?



At the start of the guides ride, my LF decides to flood out bad on the mag side, so I turned around and made it back to the Whitetail where I meet up with Adam and his father Bill. I get the 84 Liquifire out the trailer, and after about 4 tries, I get the driven clutch figured out, gas her up and join up with the Poker Run crew for lunch.

[JoeRainville]

Bob Amber's wife Marna won the Poker Run 1st place trophie. It's named in honor of the Ambers son Cammron who passed away last year in a terrible car wreck that was not his fault. It was heartwarming to see Bob accept the trophie, except for the fact he also got my $20.



All the winners donated their prize money back to the Hall of Fame, raising over $800 for them. The crowd was impressed by the generosity shown by the winners, and Jeff Zeller turned in the donations after another fun event.

We has many photo op's at the Hall of Fame cookout that afternoon. Here John Sandberg of www.arcticinsider.com provides on of many goofy pictures of the weekend. More to come on that. Wayne Nicholson, of Ski-Doo racing fame was back at the hall, and rode one of Craig Marchbanks beautiful Moto-Ski's for the weekend.



More to come...including the Vintage Challenge, flipping out and snapping under pressure...

[JoeRainville]

During the cookout and open house at the Hall, we also got to check out all the great sleds and memoribillia on display. One new addition is the 79 IFS Prototype raced by Chester Bowman for Team Arctic. Tom Rowland owns this great piece of Cat history. This sled is so rare, I hear they only built two of them.



Later that evening, Don Amber (a 3 time I-500 racer) hosted a fish fry dinner at the Whitetail Inn. What started off as a bunch of the Deere collectors having dinner has turned into quite the event, and of course, all were welcome to join.

[JoeRainville]

Friday morning breakfast was at 7:00 am at the Whitetail Inn in St. Germain. This is where we all sign up for our respective rides, grab a buffet breakfast, and I get to enjoy being thrown under a bus by Loren Anderson and his all powerful microphone. He has me trained, I kind of look forward to it now

Loren also introduces the "Champs" that we get to share the ride with this year.



Parden the sucky cell phone pic, but in the pic above are Jon Carlon, Tom Otte, Brian Nelson, Stan and Doug Hayes, Mike Smith, Wayne Nicholson, Craig Marchbank, Aaron Scheele and Jim Dimmerman just to name a few. And these guys can ride! Last year Jon, Tom and Brian entered the vintage class of the I-500 for example.

We set an attendance record with the Vintage Challenge, having at least 45 riders sign up. I will fully admit that I took a lot of pride in watching all these sleds wind down the ditchline on highway C! This event has grown from a few Deere guys riding on a lake back in 2007 to being a big attraction at the "Ride with the Champs" that has drawn in riders like Dimmerman, Scheele, Otte, Nelson, etc.

[JoeRainville]

The Challenge group leaves right from the Whitetail to head 75 miles north to lunch at Fishtails, while the modern riders and local groups stop by the HOF first. After a quick stop at Sayner to gas up a few of the sled and get trail permits for those that did not already have them, we continued up to Plumb Lake were I grabbed a few quick pit's of the group.



Notice my 84 Liquifire is still running at this point, but a Yamaha has burned a piston, earning the "First Out Trophie" from the HoF. Adam's Panther is still running, and his Dad, Bill is having a great time on Adam's 84 El Tigre. We had at least two of those 84's on the ride this year.



We had a good turn out of Deere sleds and jdsleds.com riders, lots of sweet looking Cat's, a Sidewinder and some frisky TXL's. Some of these sleds were I-500 vintage racers with Fox shocks and modern clutching to boot. Belive it or not, those shocks make all the differences in rough trails.

[JoeRainville]

We also had a few misshaps along the way to Fishtails. On Cisco Lake, there were lots of 4x4 truck ruts on the marked sled trails to look out for. Unfortunatly our own JRC got caught in one and hooked a ski. The result was a busted hood and Jon got the wind knocked out of him. He was a pretty sore dude, but after the guys re-fab'ed his hood with some duct tape I had in the 84's tool box, he finished the ride like the champion he is.



Sandbergs sled also provided a photo op. I believe Tom Rowland was at the controls when the track locked at speed on the same lake. Tom described the event as "pretty exciting" and all the Cat guys lent a hand to get it 'back on track'.



Note in the background Brian Linders 1974 JDX-8 is still going strong for the 4th year in a row. I think he should an award for finishing the ride on the oldest sled there, and being on a mid-mount machine.

[JoeRainville]

After the gas stop at Cisco lake, the trail get pretty windy through the woods. Maybe a little too windy for Adam and the Panther. I would really, really like to thank Adam for this photo-op! Both he and the sled were fine, although his pride might be a bit brused here ;D



Note the chunks of JRC's hood strapped to the back of Adam's Panther. That poor hood got another wild ride.



Of course I jumped off my Liquifire to help get him out, but only after I snapped a few pic's to torment him for years with. What are friends for after all...

[JoeRainville]

The closer we got to fishtails, the more some of the lead guys were picking up the pace. Not wanting to wrap my low build 84 Liquifire (1 of 420) around a tree, I tried to keep a quick but reasonable pace as led the group north. With my carbides all but gone, drifting became the cornering method to keep up with some hot rod TXL's.

Once we got to Lake Gogebic, I was determined not to go WFO accross the lake and risk breaking my sled. So I kept it at 3/4 throttle until a new Yami blew past me, with the TXL's right on my tail. Yup, wide open she went and stayed all the way across the lake. My ill prepared, but so far good running 84 was the first vintage sled to pull into fishtails. Found out later she was the first RWC sled even!



Fishtails had a buffet set up for us in the side room, and the Angie Stafford showed up with Cari and the support truck. That really helped speed up refueling and got the crew back on the trail. I can't thank Nick and Angie enough for volunteering their truck and trailer to run support for us!

As we were fueling up, John Sandberg provided another good photo-op. His stearing shaft broke on his I-500 racer, disabling the sled. Luckly there were no injurys and John was a good sport about it as ever.



I think he might have traded up for a Thomas SnoSports Demo sled as a concelation prize Fishtails was also also the end of the line for Adam's mighty Panther, as it started to have its motor go away. I would like to commend Adam in killing as many sleds as I did last year:>) At least his 84 El Tigre behaved for him.

[JoeRainville]

The trip back to the Whitetail was pretty uneventfully, but deffinately brisk. One of the TXL riders, Starc, liked to clip right along, so he and I made good time getting back to Cisco lake to refuel. Just was we were pulling out, Jon Carlon and Tom Otte pulled in to gas up. The 4 of us headed back to St. Germain together, making for some fun riding with two Enduro Team Deere greats. While the entire ride was great, that last part was the highlight for me.

Unfortunately, we also missed a corner, so we took the senic route back to Sayner, but still make to back to the hotel by 4:00 pm.

The night was capped off by the autograph session starting at 6:00 pm at the Whitetail Inn, followed by a great prime rib dinner and the induction of 4 more very worthy gentleman. Joey Halstrom of Cat, Snocrosser Toni Haikonen, Larry Bosacki and Marcel Fontaine were all proudly inducted. You can read more about the inductees at www.snowmobilehalloffame.com

I would of course like to thank the Hall of Fame for again hosting the Vintage Challenge as part of their 29th annual "Ride with the Champs". I would also like to thank Nick and Angie Stafford for provide support truck and crew and the "Vintage Challenge Committee" of Tom Rowland, Brian Linder and Dan Larson who's help and insite are invaluable in making this event a sucess. My final thanks are to the participants who take the challange to ride vintage iron over 150 miles just to prove they can do it.

Hope to see YOU there next year!
-Joe Rainville
Vintage Challenge Chairman

[Cabindweller]

Wish I was there. Looks like a blast. Is it the same week end every year?

Jerry

[Matt]

Jerry, yes it's been the third weekend in Feb in recent history.