Excuse the negative comments. Villenueve did win the champ race at Eagle River but this film covers three different race tracks and Cat did win two events at the season ender at another track after being #2 most of the year. I believe Polaris won the most races all season long. Vill was great at Eagle, no doubt.
It was sad that with the impending divorce of Arctic Cat and Kawasaki coming in summer of 1975, those Kawy water cooled engines wound up on a shelf. Some of that technology wouldn’t see the light of day until the Kawasaki Invaders were built. The complaint was the weight of the first gen LC engines. I think Lofton ran an updated Kawy RX 650 free air 1973 EXT engine in his machine as a preference. Seems like saw photos of that somewhere. I ve talked to current owners of these sleds , digging into the history and that’s what they told me. To me, the engine problems with big K caused a long delay in LC engines in the El Tigre’s. They didn’t introduce the Suzuki 440 LC until a limited run in the 1976 Z Racer , then a full 250/340/440 Z run for the 1977 racer and 340 Cross Country,. Again all limited build race sleds. It’s like they were timid about mass production. Finally fall 1977 they introduced the now legendary 1978 6000 440 El Tigre trail sled. Two Years after the Rupp Nitro and five years after the Brute made waves. The Suzuki engine was strong and reliable, but I’ve always felt it was about two years late to market. Possibly traceable right back to the 1973/4 race season and the decision to dump Kawasaki as engine supplier shortly after. Big K had teething pains and really wanted to go its own way. The switch to Suzuki got a better line of engines across the board, but it caused delays that hurt Arctic. Fast forward to today and Arctic is struggling to meet production of their own engine line to market demand after phasing out Suzuki and making deals with Yamaha as a long term stopgap. I bleed purple, but damn folks remember your history!
No yellow sleds that year, SkiDoo dropped out of racing that year do to the Oil Embargo/ Fuel shortage, no one else dropped out, it took SkiDoo years to catch back up.
Yes I remember that season. All Doo did was anger the faithful fans. Some racers got so flustered they switched brands to keep racing. It ended Duhamels career. He never bounced back from that. Picking on a little motor sport for pollution and fuel use compared to major industries and daily traffic is like being in school and bullying the skinny kid. It’s easy pickings and the farce is still carried on today.
I was at several of the Sno Pro races that year including Ironwood . Both my father and uncle drove for Team Kohler in Sno Pro .
Thank You for the Reminder of how great Charley Lofton was. As a point of Trivia the Polaris and Artic Cat factories are only about 70 miles apart
haha like the snow pro. artic cat is my fravriote type of sled. I would like to own one of those sleds!
Excuse the negative comments. Villenueve did win the champ race at Eagle River but this film covers three different race tracks and Cat did win two events at the season ender at another track after being #2 most of the year. I believe Polaris won the most races all season long. Vill was great at Eagle, no doubt.
It was sad that with the impending divorce of Arctic Cat and Kawasaki coming in summer of 1975, those Kawy water cooled engines wound up on a shelf. Some of that technology wouldn’t see the light of day until the Kawasaki Invaders were built. The complaint was the weight of the first gen LC engines. I think Lofton ran an updated Kawy RX 650 free air 1973 EXT engine in his machine as a preference. Seems like saw photos of that somewhere. I ve talked to current owners of these sleds , digging into the history and that’s what they told me. To me, the engine problems with big K caused a long delay in LC engines in the El Tigre’s. They didn’t introduce the Suzuki 440 LC until a limited run in the 1976 Z Racer , then a full 250/340/440 Z run for the 1977 racer and 340 Cross Country,. Again all limited build race sleds. It’s like they were timid about mass production. Finally fall 1977 they introduced the now legendary 1978 6000 440 El Tigre trail sled. Two Years after the Rupp Nitro and five years after the Brute made waves. The Suzuki engine was strong and reliable, but I’ve always felt it was about two years late to market. Possibly traceable right back to the 1973/4 race season and the decision to dump Kawasaki as engine supplier shortly after. Big K had teething pains and really wanted to go its own way. The switch to Suzuki got a better line of engines across the board, but it caused delays that hurt Arctic. Fast forward to today and Arctic is struggling to meet production of their own engine line to market demand after phasing out Suzuki and making deals with Yamaha as a long term stopgap. I bleed purple, but damn folks remember your history!
We all know about Snow Pro it was the beginning of the end to Snowmobile ovel Racing.
GILLE VILLENEUVE il restais a CHAMBLY QUÉBEC dans une roulotte en1970 course sur moto skie et skie roule et alouette
No yellow sleds that year, SkiDoo dropped out of racing that year do to the Oil Embargo/ Fuel shortage, no one else dropped out, it took SkiDoo years to catch back up.
A dumb move on their part. Skidoo was going to solve the national fuel shortage by not racing that year?
Yes I remember that season. All Doo did was anger the faithful fans. Some racers got so flustered they switched brands to keep racing. It ended Duhamels career. He never bounced back from that. Picking on a little motor sport for pollution and fuel use compared to major industries and daily traffic is like being in school and bullying the skinny kid. It’s easy pickings and the farce is still carried on today.
I don't Remember there being mountains in Eagle River, Wisonsin????
Arctic Cat propaganda. Gilles Villeneuve was world champ in 74 on a Alouette Super 650.
sounds like Ben Cartwright [Lorne Green] talking thats who that is
John Facenda, the famous broadcaster and voice of 'NFL Films.'
@@jacquesdresang1923 Thanks for the tip