The Kawasaki Research & Development facility as it appears today.	Here's the tree. It looks damn near the same as it did in the promo shot nearly 26 years ago.	The building to the left was added. The only angle that makes sense is that the 1976 Promo shot was taken where these two walls are now joined together.
(Click on any image to see a larger picture)

The Search For the 1977 Kawasaki "Shark" SnoPro Sleds.

Part Two: The "Secret" Kawasaki Research and Development Facility.

By Larry Preston

It took me only a few minutes to find the old R&D shop, just outside of Shakopee. It's across the street and down a bit from Shakopee's big amusment park, Valley Fair. I really was stunned to see the building, still standing, and looking damn good for being 26 years older then when I saw it first in the promo picture. This must kind of be how they felt when the cameras first found the Titanic! The bricks matched up as in the photo, all neat and in tidy rows. The building was the shade of puke green as I had guessed it would be. It looked like the paint was fresh.

It was now owned by a company called ChemRex. My first thought was "Damn, a chemical company will never let me dig in their backyard. They for sure have stuff buried back there they don't want the Environmental Protection Agency to know about". It was Sunday, no one was around, so I drove out back. There was the tree, looking almost exactly like it did 26 years ago! Amazing. It didn't seem like it had even grown any. I took some pictures and headed back for home, unsure of my next move.

How do you approach a chemical company and ask for permission to dig in the back yard?

Back at my desk Monday morning, I decided to just call and see what happens. I had nothing to lose. If worse came to worse and the Chemical company didn't want nothing to do with digging in the back yard, I'd formulate a plan to go out in the middle of the night and do it when no one was looking.

At ChemRex, I asked to speak to anyone in charge of the building, or who had been with the company for a long time. On the phone, I got Larry Benjamin, an executive from ChemRex. I asked him if he knew anything about his building having once been the property of Kawasaki Motors. "Yeah, I know quite a bit about it. When we bought it we had to clean up their mess. What are you looking for?" "Well", I said, "I think they were testing snowmobiles there and..." "You aren't looking for buried treasure are you?" He interrupted."Those snowmobiles are long gone".

Well, that cleared up my thought about someone else having dug them up. I was a little late on this story. "What do you mean?" I asked, expecting to hear the worst. I figured my hunt was all over. "Those snowmobiles cost Kawasaki a whole lot of money. We heard that rumor before we even bought the building". Now I knew it was over. But on the chance that I was wrong, I asked if we could have a meeting and discuss it further. We set it up for early the next week.

My notes from my meeting at ChemRex. You can see the layout of the grounds at the Kawasaki facility, including the tree, the old race track and the original burial ground of the sleds.

I met Mr. Benjamin at the ChemRex office the following Monday. He smiled and shook my hand, a confident looking man who didn't seem real happy about me taking this time out of his day. I told him I was grateful he could indulge me. We talked about he facility, which they bought from the Conklin Company in 1992. Kawasaki had built several lead lined chambers for testing engines, as well as a pool for testing Jet-Ski's. They also built a track in the back for testing snowmobiles. I drew a map with his help, and he showed me the spot were the snowmobiles were buried. Past tense. Were buried.

"You said they were buried. What happened to them?" I asked, and that's when he told me the real story behind the rumor. "We heard the rumor before we bought the building. Being a chemical company, we felt it important to clear up any environmental issues before we moved in, so we decided to report the rumor to the county. The county was very interested and sent someone out right away".

An official from Scott County came out with a metal detector and began searching. The metal detector found traces, big traces of metal just below the surface near the old race track behind the facility. They contacted Kawasaki, and ordered them to dig them back up. "And that's all I really know about it. Scott County got a hold of Kawasaki, and before I knew it, they were out with backhoes digging stuff up. They hauled it to the local dump. We got it signed off, clearing the way for us to buy the building and we felt we had done our duty towards the environment".

Wow. The damn rumor was true! Maybe they were still at the dump? I thanked him profusely for his time, then quickly headed back to my office, barely able to concentrate on driving as I thought about what I had learned. Maybe they were still in the dump? Maybe there was still a chance I could find them?

After sending out some emails, I got one back a day or so later from Scott County. Yes, they had a record of an environmental incident with Kawasaki, and yes, all I had to do was call a Mr. Peter Schmidt, and I could get all the info I needed. After all, it was all a matter of public record. I made an appointment to see him the next day.

Part 3: The Burial Ground of The Sharks