American Snowmobiler – October 2019

8 AMERICAN SNOWMOBILER • http://www.AmSnow.com

snow for years and those who are just get-

ting started in the sport. You won't see

many of the classics from the '80s at your

favorite grub stop along the trails now,

but the latest 40th Anniversary Edition

should be crushing the trails this season.

The new INDY's graphics harken back to

the original INDY, but the new Patriot

engine propels the beast into the future.

■ RACING HERITAGE

Most great innovations in the snowmobil-

ing world were born on the race track.

Independent front suspensions (IFS) are

no different. Check out AmSnow's

December 2017 and February 2018 issues

for Tech Editor Olav Aaen's look back at

how IFS first appeared on the racing

scene.

Speedwerx is broadening

its performance product

offerings to include parts

for Polaris and Ski-Doo

brands.

For 25 years the Forest

Lake, Minn.-based firm has

engineered, tested, and made

special high-performance

parts for Arctic Cat sleds.

“Speedwerx is known and

respected worldwide as the

company who has primarily

powered performance snow-

mobile parts and champion-

ships for the Arctic Cat brand

since 1999," said Jeremy

Houle, the vice president at

Speedwerx.

Now it will be doing the

same for Polaris and Ski-Doo

owners who want to boost

their sleds' performance.

As with Cat parts,

Speedwerx will focus on pro-

ducing its most popular

items, such as lightweight

mufflers, supercharger kits,

and clutch parts - lightweight

helixes, H5 alloy clutch

springs and machined clutch

weights, for the additional

brands.

More info at: 651-982-

0600, or Speedwerxstore.

com.

■ COOL NEWS

40 years of Polaris INDY!

Legendary performance, dependability, fun and a racy

attitude were the calling cards for Polaris' original INDY back

in 1980. Today's new INDY models carry that tradition forward. It's

a legacy somewhat like that of Ford's Mustang or Chevrolet's

Corvette that speaks to snowmobilers who have been bashing the

In brief,

Olav’s February

2018 story,

“The IFS Design

Challenge,” tells

how Chaparral

enlisted the

help of Indy

500 champion

Bobby Unser to

work with its

racing team in

the 1970s. The

racing Unser

family is full of avid snowmobilers. Back

then, racing was the breeding ground for

innovative advances and members of rac-

ing teams were the brains behind much of

the progress made.

When the Chaparral racing team

showed up in 1972 with the first iteration

of its independent front suspension,

there was skepticism from other teams,

including Bob Eastman who ran the

Polaris race team. Chaparral went out of

business shortly thereafter and the Unser

IFS design faded from racing circuits, but

not before Gordy Rudolph and Gilles

Villeneuve (later a famous Formula 1

racer) would put the IFS to use for them-

selves.

Rudolph used Chaparral IFS designs

EXPANSION ▶

SPEEDWERX TO MAKE POLARIS, SKI-DOO PARTS

NEW INDY Polaris' new INDY sleds are a huge leap forward from the early models, the latest being

high-performance sleds with 129- and 137-inch tracks and a new 850 Patriot engine.

HISTORY LESSON ▶