Here’s a cool old image sent to me from Sharon Holmstrom at Arctic Cat.
It’s of the Arctic Cat test crew, from either 1973 or 1974, and shot at the Medowlark Lodge near Worland, Wyoming.
Front row (l-to-r): Arne Rantanen, Steve Holmstrom and Dave Beito
Back row (l-to-r): Unidentified, Jon Swenson, Del Wahl, Lodge owner, Rod Cymbaluk, Durmont Wahl and Gary Halvorson
Anyone else know more info about the shot?
I’ll have to show this to my dad and get some info!
dad says it was the first test trip he went on, figures it’s 1974. Pretty sure there were 18 guys out there. Then he proceeded to tell me some test stories I can’t really put on the internet. Involving rental cars and some drinking stories.
LOL. I’d like to hear some of those stories.
Arne, what sleds were they testing?
Says he remembers Dave Beito was on a Puma Wankle, himself and Gibson were testing tracks and says they were pretty much testing everything. He said a lot of track testing that trip, full cleat track stuff. But nothing new or special on that trip.
That that unidentified guy could be Jim burkholder or that Gibson. Said there was 18 guys out there and he just couldn’t tell who it was. Also mentioned Clayton Shay, Don Eide, couple Burkholders, thinks Roger Bennit and Roger might have been out there.
About the rental cars, needless to say they weren’t allowed to rent many cars!
I remember a lot about those days. The only way to tell all the wild stories would be for all of us to get together and write a book. The lodge owner was Pistol Anderson. He and his wife were killed in a car wreck a couple years after this pic was taken. We made several trips to MeadowLark over the years.