? ?
- Boy, if you go out up here in the Northwoods
early in the week, Monday, Tuesday,
when there's not a lot of people up here,
you find a trail that's a smooth as glass
and you're riding an old sled
and you tootle along 25, 30 miles an hour
winding trail.
Man, it don't get no better than that.
[snow mobile engine hums]
My name is Craig Marchbank.
I'm a vintage Ski-Doo knucklehead,
president of the Snowmobile Racing Hall of Fame
in Saint Germain, Wisconsin.
I was a racer for Ski-Doo,
very fortunate to be sponsored by Ski-Doo for 30 years.
It was a blast.
Traveling around the country,
competing, dominating.
We were very prepared
when we hit a racetrack.
Second wasn't an option.
Started collecting snowmobiles
probably when I was a young man.
Started collecting many things.
You would go to the race team events
and different functions for Ski-Doo
and they would give you
just different merchandise, and paraphernalia,
and coats, jackets, sweaters.
And being a collector when I was a young man,
I just held on to that stuff.
One thing stems from another
to another to another.
And before you know it, there's 140 sleds here.
? ?
This is my wife and I's collection
in Tomahawk, Wisconsin.
We have approximately 140 Ski-Doo snowmobiles,
five or six Moto-Skis,
and a whole lot of paraphernalia,
whether it be sweaters, oil bottles, rings,
coats, helmets, gloves,
anything you would associate with a Ski-Doo brand or logo.
? [rowdy rock music] ?
This is a 1960 Ski-Doo.
First production year for Ski-Doo.
Wooden skis.
They built just a little over 200 of these machines in '60
and ballpark, what we've all talked about,
there's probably only a couple dozen left
between Canada and the United States.
This is a 1965 Ski-Doo Santa Sleigh.
Very rare.
They're like hen's teeth.
In all of the years I've been in Ski-Doos, which is about 40,
I've only seen three in real life,
and this is one of them.
Now, she's just a display piece,
but we go to shows,
we hook it up to a '65 Ski-Doo Chalet
and pull it around.
This is a 1974 Nordic.
The early Nordic's were yellow
In '73 and '74,
they decided to go chocolate brown and wood grain.
Somebody thought it was a luxury type look.
They chromed it out, brown seat even,
and actually, a cigarette lighter, too.
Imagine that.
This is a 1992 Mach 1X.
It's one of the original six
that were put on the grass drag racing circuit.
There's only, I think,
two, maybe three, left in existence of the six.
Extremely dominant machines for their time and era.
They banned the snowmobile
because it was so fast.
Every single one of these sleds in here runs.
We are still adding to the collection.
Yes, it's a blast.
I'm still 14 years old, right, in my head
until I look in the mirror.
Maybe I need to go to Snowmobiles Anonymous.
I'm not sure.
But yeah, I'd call myself a collector.
[engine revving]
[playful instrumental]
You might see me on a '60s sled one day,
'70s, '80s, '90s, 2000s.
You know, you'll see me on a different sled all the time.
It's a blast riding this stuff.
And then, you go down a trail
on one of these old machines
and you're wearing a suit and helmet to match it
and everybody just comes and talks to you.
They can't believe you're riding this thing out there.
It doesn't get much better than that.
[engine vrooming]