Welcome to the Byron, Minnesota Snow Bears Website!

The Byron Snow Bears are proud to announce the 15th Annual Great Southern Grass Drag Nationals, Swap Meet & Vintage Sled Show was another huge success. This year even the cold rainy weekend could detour approximately 3100 spectators, well over 300 swappers, 73 sleds in the vintage show & dozens of NSRA & vintage grass draggers from attending the largest swap meet & grass drags in Southern Minnesota. Our vintage sponsors get all the credit for the success of this years event because without our sponsors donations vintage racing wouldn't be the same at Douglas. The VSCA Magazine sponsored the purse with Point & Shoot Racing sponsored the 5 foot tall traveling trophy for the "Tracy Kruger Memorial Speed Run" for Mod.Stock sleds that Freddy "THE BULLET" Smith won on his 1972 Ski-doo Blizzard at 81 Mph. Other sponsors for the race were MVSS Waconia 2010, VintageSleds.com, Engineered Graphics Ltd., Spaulding Vintage Snowmobile, Delaughter Racing, The Vintage Sled Shop, Rochester Service Co., & the Byron Snow Bears.

The winners of the vintage grass drags were in Stock B was Casey Root of Faribault,Mn. with his Artic Cat Z, Brian Mahler of East Bethel,Mn. won Stock C on his Merc.T/T, Jesse Jones of Rice Lake,Wi. on his Yamaha Exciter took Stock D, Katie Root Wenthold won class E on her now famous Herters. Now onto Mod Stock winners, MS Fan 341-440 winner was Shane Pauly of Alexandria,Mn. on a Yamaha Exciter, then the DRP gang of Leah Tanner, Jeff Lausten & Josh Erdman took over the rest of the Mod Stock & Open Mod classes at Douglas. Tanner of Rhinelander,Wi. won the MS-L 341-440 on a Yamaha SRX, Jeff Lausten of Sebeka,Mn. won the MS F/A 441 & up, MS-L 441 & up on his Yamaha SR & then Josh Erdman of Delano,Mn.won the MS-F/A 0-340, MS-L 0-340 & Open Mod 441 & up on a Polaris TX then on his Yamaha GPX he won MS F/A 341-440 & Josh also won the OM Single Cyl. on a Yamaha SR.

The vintage show was one of the largest ever at Douglas with 73 sleds participating in hopes to take home 1 of 23 trophy plaques. Al Bruggenthies of Rochester won 4 classes including Sled with Cutter class with his 1970 Ski-doo Oly with Caboose, his 1965 Ski-doo Chalet won the Restored Fan class then he won the 1973 & Older Original Fan with a 1972 Ski-doo Nordic & Al won the Race/Custon class with his 1971 Ski-doo 797 Blizzard that he built as a tribute to his nephew Donald Haller who raced this same sled back in the day on the USSSA circuit. Another big winner was Mike Goodman of Oronoca,MN. with his absolutely mint Ski-doo 245 RV, Mike won the Restored F/A-Liquid class ,the Presidents Choice Award & Best of Show Award also . You would never know it but this was Mike's first ever restoration & the first time attending a vintage show, Wes Siegeresma took home a 1st place plaque with his 1971 Artic Cat EXT in the Original Free air/Liquid class.Kent Rundquist won the 1974 & Newer Fan class with his 1974 Johnson.Then Leroy Rick topped off the winners with his rare Red hooded 1972 Artic Cat Kitty Cat.

OK,here we go again! Only one month to get your sleds ready for the biggest vintage sled show in Southern Minnesota. Last year we had over 100 entries in the show & I hope to beat that record again this year. The gates open at 7am on Sunday & if you want your sled to be judged you need to have it displayed by 10:30am. Trophy plaques will be handed out by 2pm or so depending on the start of the vintage races. Event dash plaques will be handed out to all participant in the show along with 15 trophy plaques. In the past years I have set-up classes to give as many trophies away as possible but I took home a trophy the last two years , so to keep this from happening again I generalized the classes & I will give out more trophies per class.

The Byron SnowBears, PoiBoys Racing, The Vintage Sled Shop (protoolplastics.com), The VSCA Magazine, Intech Graphics, Vintagesleds.com, MVSS (Midwest Vintage Snowmobile Shows...Waconia 2009), Rochester Service Co., Al's Specialty Marine, .Without your support vintage racing wouldn't be the same

The Byron Snow Bears are proud to announce that Brain Sutton of Braham ,Mn. will coordinate the vintage races this year at Douglas. Brian is the coordinator/promoter for the Princeton vintage races. The rules for the vintage races can be found on his web site...www.protoolplastics.com then go to the Vintage Sled Shop there you will find the rules, classes, tech info, entry fees & paybacks. So pack you bags, load your sleds up & head to Douglas on the 21st for vintage racing So.Mn.style.

Ok, another one bite the dust. What a great time we had this year. we had 65 sleds in our show this year ,a little down from the past years but the quality was up for sure. With all the chat about the pros & cons of a 1 day vs. 2 day, Saturday vs, Sunday event & coffee vs bloody mary's in the morning I believe this event was one of our best ever. Awesome weather, over 3000 spectators, 50 grass racers & a huge swap led to a very successful event for the Byron SnowBears.. I would personally like to thank Mr. Craig Durst of Rochester Service Co. for his support of the whole event. He lets the club use his equipment ,gets us the light towers for overnight security & is a sponsor for the vintage races also. Craig doesn't do this for publicity he does it because he can... plain & simple.Thanks again Mr.Durst. I would also like to thank Mr.Robert Poirier of PoiBoys Racing for his support of the 2nd Annual Tracy Kruger Memorial Speed Run. Thank you Mike & Judy with the VSCA magazine for the great article about the 1st annual speed run & for the full page event advertisment. Thank you goes out to all the vintage race sponsors, without your support the event in Douglas wouldn't be what it is. Thank you Frank Sadlon of Engineered Graphics,Ltd. maker of reproduction snowmobile decals, Larry Preston (www.vintagesleds.com) from the best vintage web site out there. John Zeglin with the MVSS(Midwest Vintage Snowmobile Shows) Waconia"09" John is the chairman for the large vintage snowmobile event in the world, Al's Specialty Marine of Rochester,#1 Lund boat & Ski-doo dealer in So.Mn., Bill Schisan of Intect Graphics maker of reproduction snowmobile decals, Last but not least I'd like to thank Brian Sutton of www.protoolplastics.com (the Vintage Sled Shop) maker of reproduction molded rubber items for your vintage snowmobiles such as , snow flaps, hood straps, tank straps & rubber sprockets. Brian was our vintage race director & everyone involved would say Brian ran one heck of a race.

If it's results you want ...here we go. Roll Eyes

Stock A - Robert Simota / Lonsdale,Mn...78 Yamaha SRX
Stock B - Bryan Mahler / Brooklyn Park,Mn...76 Merc.Trailtwister
Stock C - Bryan Mahler / Brooklyn Park,Mn...76 Merc.Trailtwister
Stock D - Bryan Mahler / Brooklyn Park,Mn...76 Merc.Trailtwister
Stock E - Nathan Trox / Osecola,Wi....80 Yamaha Ex.
Stock F - Casey Root / Houston,Tx...73 Herters
MS F 441 -Up - Bryan Mahler / Brooklyn Park,Mn...76 Merc.Trailtwister
MS F/A 0-340 - Katie Root / New Richland,Mn...72 Speedway
MS F/A 341-440 - Steve Hassel / Spirit Lake,Ia...75 Yamaha GPX
MS F/A 441-Up - Jeff Lausten / Sebeka,Mn...73 Yamaha SR
MS L 0-340 - Kristen Jorgensen / Stacy,Mn...76 Polaris TX
MS L 340-440 - Josh Erdman / Delano,Mn... 77 Yamaha SRX
MS L 441-Up - Jeff Lausten / Sebeka,Mn...73 Yamaha SR
OM 0-440 - Joe Wegleitnes / Stacy,Mn///78 Yamaha SRX
OM 441-Up - Jeff Lausten / Sebeka,Mn...73 Yamaha SR
2nd Annual Tracy Kruger Memorial Speed Run...Jeff Lausten -73 Yamaha SR...86 MPH.

Restored Trail Free-air/Liquid...Mark Schroeder-Bay City,Wi...73 Artic Cat 250 Eltigre

Sled With Cutter...Al Bruggenthies-Rochester,Mn...67 Ski-doo Oly w/ 70 Ski-doo Cutter

Oct.4th, 2009 Douglas,Mn..The Byron SnowBears will hold their 15th Annual Great Southern Grass Drag Nationals, Swap Meet & Vintage Sled Show in Douglas,Mn. 5 miles NW of Rochester. .

Vintage race sponsors are starting to come in with The VSCA Magazine leading the way sponsoring the Tracy Kruger Memorial Speed Run & Spaulding Vintage Snowmobile, Midwest Vintage Snowmobile Shows(MVSS), Engineered Graphics,Ltd., Rochester Services, Al's Specialty Marine & the Byron Snow Bears contributing to the purse for the vintage racers.
This year our vintage show classes are;
1st,2nd 3rd place plaques for 1973 & older Original Fan,
1974 & newer Original fan,
1985 & older Restored Fan,
1985 & older Original F/A- Liquid,
1985 & older Restored F/A-Liquid,
1985 & older Race/Custom
1st place plaques for Mini sleds
Sled with cutter
Presidents Choice Award ( No, not Obama)
Best of Show Award
vintage show info; Tom...wbait13@aol.com