Now that I've covered the basics, let me share some of my real experiences with you. I made up my mind from the beginning that I would buy a sled just for racing. I usually turn my trail sled over every year for a new one so I didn't want to race that one. I chose to start racing with a 1997 Ski-Doo Mach1. This choice was based on:

• I work for Bombardier Transportation Group, in their Auburn, NY facility so I'm somewhat brand biased. There was never any question that I would race a Ski-Doo.
• I choose a triple because it gives me the best upgrade path for when I decide that stock isn't fast enough to suit me anymore. I can have the 700 warmed up or go all the way to a 1000cc engine. If I had a twin chassis, going to a triple would be a harder task. Not impossible, just harder.
• I always thought the F2000 body style looked "cool". How is that for a good reason? The only difference between a drag race and a car show (or sled show in this case) is the speed of the vehicles on display. So I wanted a sled that looked good to.

The sled I bought had some serious miles on it. So the first order of business was to trailer the sled to Chris Heaven, owner of Powerhouse Racing in Belleville Ontario. Chris made a couple of baseline runs on a Land & Sea dyno to see what the stock performance level was. The engine pulled 133hp@ 8400. I left the engine with Chris and took the rest of the sled home with me. Chris was going to give the jugs a little clean up. I wanted to start racing with a fairly solid engine, similar to his trail performance package. The parameters I wanted to stay within here were to retain the stock pipes and carbs, no work on the bottom end of the engine. A fairly conservative setup. I wanted to get on the track and start practicing my skills, not have to worry about tuning a hyper engine. When my skills are up to par (consistent ETs, good reaction times), then I'll worry about having more power to go faster.

While the engine was being freshened up I decided to strip the sled to clean and inspect everything. Since I didn't know the previous owner, I didn't know the history of this machine. There was no telling what the real mileage was on it. Some things on it I did not want to take a chance on coming apart at 100+mph on the asphalt. The pavement is not very forgiving when you land on it.

I disassembled the rear suspension down to the slide rails, cleaned and inspected them. Found some elongated mounting holes and minor cracks in the rails. I had them welded and re-drilled back to spec. At this point I installed some additional idler wheels in areas where the track was unsupported for more than 6-8 inches. I used Kimpex idler wheels.

The front suspension got a cleaning, inspection and reassembly. Nothing to do there but make limiter straps for the front springs. These will control how much the nose of the sled will lift before lifting the skis. The front of the sled needs to be lowered as well as the back. You can either use shorter springs or tie down the front end with the existing springs. I used old limiter straps cut to a length that would hold the front down. I attached the limiter straps to the upper and lower shock mount bolts.

Under the cowl the only change I made at this time was to remove the oil injection system. I run pre-mixed fuel in my sled.

When I installed the skid frame I went through the chassis alignment procedure outlined in the Ski-Doo racing manual. Tech tip: First thing you should get is the factory racing manual for whatever type of sled you're going to race. There are volumes of info in those manuals about tuning everything on your sled. I went through the jackshaft/driveshaft alignment procedure. The best thing about doing this alignment is that at worst you have to buy a few shims, at best you can gain fractions of a second here with proper alignment. Poor alignment between driveshaft/jackshaft and slide rails can scrub of a lot of power.

The most important performance tuning tool that I installed was a RacePak Avenger III. With this unit I could monitor all 3 EGTs, water temperature, engine RPM and jackshaft RPM. From those 2 RPM sensors, the Avenger calculates and displays the clutch ratio in real time. This will tell you exactly what your clutches are doing. You can record those events for up to 25 seconds. This is invaluable for tuning because after a pass down the track you can replay this recording and see your EGT, RPM , clutch ratio and mph as it happened during the race. If you're racing a stock machine and just working on your consistency, you don't need this. You can check your plugs and piston wash visually, jet a little fat to be on the safe side. You're not after ultimate speed in bracket racing. No sense risking a lean burn down.

A few weeks later I went back to Belleville to pick up my engine. It was complete except for some reed spacers. Lacking the spacers I decided to skip doing a dyno run. I would do that when the spacers were installed. I was too anxious to get on the track and start racing. It was already late July and half way through the season.

That weekend there was a race a Shannoville Motorsports Park located 15 minutes east of Belleville, Ontario where Powerhouse Racing in located. This would be a shakedown run. Everything on the sled was set to stock configuration except for the rear suspension being chained down to 1" of travel. That provided a baseline setup to work from. The sled weighed in at 601 pounds with 5 gallons of gas and full coolant system. With me on the sled the total weight is 865 lbs. Based on tests of previous 700s built by Powerhouse Racing, it was estimated that my engine should be making about 10hp over stock. Now if I did my part correctly, the sled should run mid 11s.

The first run down the track the sled lifted the skis about 1ft, carried them well past the 60ft light, then started drifting toward the edge of the track. I had to back off the throttle to get the skis down which resulted in a poor ET of 12.4x @ 100 mph.

I quickly learned that I didn't need to hang way off the back of the seat like I would on grass or ice. An adjustment of the limiter strap to pull the front of the skid up a bit and staying in the center of the seat, leaning forward over the handlebars seemed to cure the ski lift problem. I was able to muster a best run of 12.35 @ 101 mph that day.

Under normal circumstances of bracket racing, that ET would be ok if it was fairly consistent.. To me, I had a personal goal to make the sled run to it's estimated potential of mid 11s at 110mph. My mission was twofold. (1) Week to week improvement in my ET; (2) continuously improving my starting line techniques and consistency on race day. I wanted to use this sled to have fun racing, I also wanted to use it to educate myself on performance tuning a snowmobile. So now the hunt was on to find out how to get it down to mid 11s. Shaving .8 seconds off of a 12 second machine of any kind is a tall task. I would accomplish that through chassis and clutching. Most importantly I wanted to learn it on my own, calling upon Powerhouse Racing only when I got stumped as to what to do with the sled.

I spent the next few weeks before my next race going through the clutches. With who knows how many thousands of miles on them, they were pretty sloppy. I lucked out because this was right at the time that Ski-Doo issued a recall on the primary clutch for this machine so I got a brand new primary. The new primary does not have machined sheaves where the old one did. I don't know how much of a difference it will make. During the off season I will have the new ones trued up. Up until now I've had the stock clutch setup in there. Chris gave me a list of suggested helix, springs and ramps that I would need to start narrowing my setup down to one more suitable for ? mile drag racing. The problem here was that at my size (6?1", 265lbs) I was not your average size drag racer. So Chris's records of all his setups for other race sleds would not hold the immediate answer. This was a new challenge for him as well.

I have to admit that for my very next race, I made several changes all at once. I used new ramps, primary springs, and helix. The new clutch setup netted me a series of 11.9x runs at 103-104 mph. I was pleased with the ET reductions. I was headed in the right direction.

Over the course of the 8 weeks that followed, I made several clutch setup changes, gear changes, some chassis adjustments and played with various track tension settings. These changes I made one at a time. I even ran without the headlight to try and force cold air into the engine. I've since covered the headlight opening but am still looking at ways to put some cool air from outside the cowl into carbs. I was constantly reviewing the clutching data collected by the Avenger, .as well as the EGT data to help me understand what was transpiring. For a novice sled tuner such as myself, the Avenger data would either support or contradict what the seat of my pants told me about each run. Knowing what the real numbers were after each run, helps me train my "seat dyno" on how to interpret what it senses during each run.

Here is another important tip: if you are going to start tinkering with your sled, keep detailed notes on what you do, what parts you use, jets, needles, springs, ramps, weights, air temperature, humidity, etc. Your factory racing manual probably has a blank race log that you can use or make one up on your own. This information will be valuable. Especially when the changes you make cause you to go slower. You will want to know how to get back to where you were. Do not make a bunch of changes at once. If you do, you won't know what the effect of each change was.

I've accumulated quite a substantial number of clutch parts. Chris was able to point me in the right direction. I never went backwards with any of the tips he gave me. Some of the things I experimented with on my own took me a step or two backwards. That's how you learn. This is where bracket racing is a little more forgiving than the heads up racing. Some of the setups I tried were slower than previous setups. However, on that given day, the sled would run a consistent ET. Therefore I could still be competitive with it.

I've gone through my chassis setup. I've changed all the oem bearings in the skidframe to NTN low friction bearings. I've deburred, balanced and polished all moving parts in the clutch. I've machined the hub in the helix so the secondary spring doesn't bind on it. I've done the same with the retainer cup on the primary spring. You would be surprised all the little pieces and parts that can bind up in your clutching.

I finally got my reed spacers installed and made another dyno run. The engine pulled 144 hp at 8400. A solid 11 hp increase of stock. We also tried a couple of aftermarket mufflers. I was being urged to put a set of pipes on the engine to wake it up. Pipes were not budgeted for so that was out of the question for this year. We did find one after market muffler that allowed the engine to pull right up to 8750 rpm where it registered 156hp. I bought the muffler on the spot. It was a used one so the price was right. There is no name on it so I can't tell you what kind it is.

During the course of the weeks that I raced this season from July through October, I was able to continuously reduce my ET from 12.4 down to my best time (Oct 4th) of 11.60 @ 110mph. Mission accomplished, mid 11s at 110 mph. I'm sure it will go faster with more tweaking. Then engine is certainly up to the task. Somewhere in the high mileage chassis I'm scrubbing off the power. Maybe my 6?1" body is blocking too much wind? Who knows. Just for a test recently I let another person (Terry Holt, snowmobile class champion at ESTA Safety Park) take a run on my sled. Terry weighs in 100 pounds less than I do. At the end of elimination rounds he took my sled for a time trail run. He ran .35 seconds quicker than I did. Just goes to show what a 100lb reduction is worth. Something you have to straighten out for yourself is when one side of your brain tells you that it's bracket racing, you don't? need to spend the time or money to go faster. The other side of your brain just keeps shouting: FASTER, FASTER, FASTER!!! If you're not careful, thinking of ways shave another .001 second of your ET will take over your every waking moment. There are two things that make a bracket racing winner: A consistently good reaction time, and a sled that will run on it's dial in. You don't have to have a big dollar modified engine to win in bracket racing. In fact that is probably the last place to spend your money. Spend it on clutching and chassis That is what will get you consistent. Then when (not if) you're bitten by the bug to go faster you'll be prepared to tune the sled for more power. At some point in time, you will get bitten by the bug to go faster. Don't say I didn't warn you.

For now, I'll settle for 11.60s @ 110. The leaves are changing color and snow is not to far away. Time to put the asphalt sled away and start prepping the winter sled.

This process has been a fantastic learning tool for me. I entered this project at a novice level of snowmobile wrenching. This summer has been a condensed course in clutch tuning, engine tuning, racing techniques, and all around sled mechanics. I don't think you can race on grass or snow and make such small changes and see the results of the change. On grass/snow/ice there is a much broader range of track conditions that play havoc with your setup and your ability to repeat your ET. Asphalt, while not exactly the same each week, is much more consistent than any other track surface. The ? mile doesn't lie when you make a change, you know if you went the right way or the wrong way.

I have just touched the tip of the iceberg of asphalt racing technology. It would take me a life time of time trials to learn what the stars of the NSSR know about the sport. That's why bracket racing is such a good way to get started. Big budgets do not guarantee a win light. You can be competitive at whatever level of budget you want. If there were just a couple of pieces of advise I can give they would be:

(1) Don't buy a twin. I know it's bracket racing and all that. However, if you're like most guys, after about 5-6 races you're going to have the itch to go faster. You can only do so much with a twin. Right now I'm kind of kicking myself in the ass that I didn't get MachZ to start with.

(2) Once you get the sled spend your time and engergy in the following order:

• Chassis setup, straight and true
• Clutching, clean, new bearings, dial it in for lowest ET
• Practice, practice, practice. Get a practice tree.

Once you master your starting line technique and you have the sled running consistant times through good clutch setup and chassis setup, then and only then, should you consider going faster.

If you and your sled are not consistant, spending time and money to go faster is a waste. Low ET does not win races. Consitant ET and good reaction times win races. I've already seen a few people that bought a sled, dumped a ton of money in the motor and nothing else. The things are so inconsistant that their odds of consistantly winning are stacked against them. Not that they can't win, but in the long run, it's not likely to be a consitant winner.

My prime objectives were and still remain:

Have fun
Don't? get hurt
Learn about my snowmobile

So far I've been having a ball, I haven't broken anything or had an accident and I've learned a heck of a lot. I almost hate to see summer come to an end.

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