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**Daredevil snow cat driver from hell!**

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
When I first started working for the Trans Alaska Pipeline I took advantage of the fact that Fairbanks was where I operated out of. I called around, drove around, asked and inquired about Snow Cats. In the past I had always gotten good leads from old guy's that ran Electrric Motor Rewind shops and Welding and fabrication shops. So a friend in fairbanks points me to a welding shop that he was sure had been working on some guy's ST4. I drove over to the next town, North Pole Alaska, where they keep XMass lights up all year, and the streets have names like Santa Claus Lane and Elf Way. They have this little Post Office that they have to "Man-Up" with 50 postal workers around Christmas because of all the folks that want packages and XMass cards to bear the NorthPole Postal mark. There are 2 drop boxes, that one actually says Northpole Post mark, and the other says Fairbanks Postmark. So I track down this gentleman who was about to retire. He had been a Propane delivery guy in Alaska for 10 years, then a UPS driver for another 16 years. Over the course of one evening he gave me the location and crude maps of how to find every ST4 owner in half of Alaska. I moved to Northpole from washington. I spent the next year tracking down every owner I could. This one owner, a hunter, had this really trashed Trac Master. He had already totaled out his first one. On his second one the brake drums were WELDED on the the spline shafts! It had been rolled, possibly twice. Not much of a restoration candidate! Initially it was hard to tell it was a snow trac product. He had developed a method to cut a bunch of limbs, about inch and a half in diameter and use them to drive a machine that had detracked right back onto the tracks.
 

Lyndon

Bronze Member
GOLD Site Supporter
And his machine looked like it, tracks and all. I'd seen other Snow Cats of all makes that had been used to Hunt that were trashed, but seeing this one convinced me to NEVER BUY a track vehicle that has been used for hunting! It's been a good rule to live by. Anyway the owner of this machine's friend has this old black and white 8MM home movie of this guy driving the track master up a waterfall! It's almost verticle! The grousers are getting bent to hell. When he reaches the top the machine is balanced on the rear wheel for a second as if it was about to tumble backwards back down the watrfall. But amazingly it flops down the right way and drives away! Jeepers and Rock crawlers would be in awe. This led me to believe that a Trac Master, or Snow Master may be the most agressive snow cat built. I've since owned 3 Trac Master's and 1 Snow Master.

If Bill Harnish had taken the FBI rig to the Snow Cat Shoot Out I would have been willing to bet that he might have put alot of newer, far more advanced and certainly more expensive machines to shame. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!
 

mlang2005

Member
Bill that sounds like a challenge? Now you have to come to auburn in feb. that is if there is enough snow to make it worth while.
 

mtntopper

Back On Track
SUPER Site Supporter
mlang2005 said:
Bill that sounds like a challenge? Now you have to come to auburn in feb. that is if there is enough snow to make it worth while.

I might just have to see if Lyndon is off that week and wants to take the FBI rig down and up the hill. Our snow in northern WY sucks so far this year. I have only been able to run it on the roads and areas where we have snow. Lyndon, are you available that week to show them how it is done? Just have to make losers out of all the other brands....:yum:
 

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Bill & Lyndon --- Take a video camera so we can watch the drive:17875: We want movies :myopinion:
 
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