Hitches Unlimited

Checking out some bolt on stuff this week. Randy Swenson (Team Thunderstruck) is our newly appointed western regional manager for Yamaha and was in town so I grabbed him on Tuesday night for a ride. The snow conditions around south Simcoe are getting real skinny but it was still worth the effort to get with Randy. I had a set of HID lights in my Apex to try out as well as the newest version of the TRIC ice scratchers… and I’m glad I had both.

The HID lights are really intense and in my estimation worth the price of admission. I will definitely be running these on any of my future sleds. We were running a rail trail tunnel through the bush at a significant velocity. It seemed illuminated similar a freight train -very nice! Not sure how much the scratchers were helping across the now snow-bare, plowed corn fields we had to run, but there is likely a clean strip that won’t need to be harrowed in the spring!

Randy was running the same sled that Matt smashed the world 24 hour distance record on. All I did was change the oil, tighten the track and replace the carbides (broken studs). The steering was still nice and tight and everything was running good as new. Got a chuckle out of Randy when he said this was the longest he has sat down on a snowmobile in recent recollection and his throttle thumb was cramping from the steady throttle settings down Lake Simcoe. He also remarked how powerful the sled felt at sea level, which coming from a man who runs upwards to 400hp in his ‘first ascent’ machines, is quite a statement.

We are heading for Wisconsin next week to hook-up with the US based, testing and planning guys. Hopefully we’ll have enough snow to check out some of the future projects they are working on. Won’t surprise me if we end up in the UP.

Wade is holding down the fort at the annual media ‘Snowshoot’ which is taking place in West Yellowstone as I write this. So far I haven’t heard much about what is happening there but I am sure there is lots of schmoozing between the OE’s and journalists, we’ll have to wait and see what actually gets printed. So far it would appear the new Apex is a hands down winner for the most advanced, evolved / changed 2011 model released thus far, but I’m not completely up to speed and have yet to see how strong the marketing spin will be behind the emissions motor oriented line-up from Quebec. What? Now ‘4-strokes are lighter than 2-strokes’? Really now, that’s simply amazing. How do you spell ’sled of the year?’

Yamafest is a go out in Revvy and I understand that Gilles from G-Force will attend along with his world-speed record holding Apex Streamliner and a Yamcharger equipped mountain sled. Randy and the boys are planning a few surprises for the participants, only wish I could make it out this year…

We’re looking at temperatures upwards of +10 degrees C this weekend. Could it be time to put some air in the tires? Hmmmm.

Cheers cr