I-500 Stampings

[Deleted]

I have been told that sleds that raced in the Soo 500 will have stampings on the tunnel and i'm trying to verify this, can anyone help me out? I am restoring an 800 Mag that has additional letters/numbers stamped into the top of the tunnel between the motor and seat and am trying to find out their purpose. Thanks in advance. Joe

[MrPeabody]

Hey Joe. The only thing that I can think of is that some races had cheaters. Some races, not so big, the techs put seals on the sleds to make sure that the sled that started was also the one to finish. One example was, a certain person who was fairly well known and supposedly a top winner was passed by a group of sleds and eventually more sleds were passed too and now thought they were now in the lead positions. When they came across the finish line they knew they were 1, 2, and 3 only to find out that this guy had won only minutes before. The helmet was a full face so they didn't see his face when they passed but the numbers on the sled and the name on the helmet were the same. He couldn't have taken a detour as it was a straight shot for the most part on the last leg and no one passed them either. It was protested but he still won. The next race they had seals on the sleds.

In the I-500 the sleds serial numbers were recorded and the sleds locked up until the race and couldn't be touched. On other races, pit crews followed on a parallel path. They were allowed to make repairs or replace parts, but this took time, so some justed dropped another sled in place of it.