The pictures show a yellow hood, some gast tanks, and what really looks like an IFS system and a ski on the sled on the top of the pile, upside down.

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

Part 4: The Burial Pictures and Four Feet of Clay.

By Larry Preston

"Mr. Preston, your pictures are ready". The voice on the other end of the line was from my new friend at the nearby photo developing shop. In the course of working on vintagesleds.com, I had become a regular customer, developing 2-3 rolls of film per week. I probably paid for her new car. "Thank you, I'll be right there". I put my cell phone down and went back to feigning interest in the meeting I was in. Something about a production schedule, I think.

Actually, I couldn't think. I had to see those photos now. I summoned up my best get-the-meeting-over-with-quick skills and within minutes was off down a Minneapolis skyway towards the photo place. It was near lunch time and cold outside, making the skyway very crowded. A crowded skyway is good. Crowded skyways tend to be crowded by very good looking women. Knock down, drag-out fabulous babes. Models. Bankers. Sales persons. In all shapes, sizes, colors and builds. Smorgasbord. Mmm. Yummy.

But I digress.

Finally, I was sure, I could see what was left of the Sharks. I got the photos, paid the fees, smiled at my photo finishing friend, and headed for the nearest well-lit area so I could take a look at the pictures.

My heart racing, I stared intently at them for about 15 minutes. The more I stared, the more my fast beating heart began to grind to a slow, plodding thud.

In disgust, I had to conclude that the photos are inconclusive. I muttered a curse to myself and headed for the coffee shop. I got a hot cup of java, pulled up a chair and stared at the pictures more. The coffee helped ease my disappointment as it warmed me up. You can see a lot of parts, but no complete snowmobiles as the report had said. I see a chassis, upside down with an IFS system. But it doesn't look like the ones on the Sharks. I can can see what looks like parts of a hood, but it's yellow, not green. I can see a seat, it doesn't match the Shark seats. I see gas tanks. No match. I see all kinds of parts. None of them look like Shark parts. Damn it! I have to conclude their is nothing in these photos that positively identify this debris as the my SnoPro sharks. Nothing.

Late in the afternoon one day later, I got a call from Dave at the Demcon dump. More bad news. He didn't remember any snowmobiles coming in the dump. Worse, the Louisville Landfill was condemned by the State of Minnesota sometime in the early 1990's because it contained both domestic and commercial garbage and was probably hazardous. They ordered it covered with 4 feet of clay. It's an area about 8 city blocks square, covered in 4 feet of clay. Even if you had the time and the resources to dig in search of the sleds, Dave informed me that the state would never, ever allow digging in that area, probably for a period of twenty years or more.

How long does it take for aluminum and fiberglass to decompose? I wondered.

So that was it. End of the trail, end of the story. The Sharks are buried in a dump that can't be messed with. I can finish the story and be done with it.

But the pictures bothered me. They did not prove it was the Shark sleds were the sleds buried there. They just proved some snowmobiles were buried there. I was staring at the Scott County report one afternoon and decided to just check if Lee Marcraft still worked at Kawasaki. After doing some digging, I finally found Lee, working for Victory (Polaris) Motorcycles in Wisconsin. To my joy, he was willing to talk about the Kawasaki's as he no longer worked for them.

"Oh that damned rumor!" He laughed out loud. "That damned rumor has followed me around for decades, and caused me more damn grief..." he continued on. He told me the story much the same way Peter Schmidt of Scott County had told it. The building was being sold and Kawasaki decided to clean the mess up. The sleds were buried for liability reasons. They were crushed with a backhoe and buried just a few feet down. "Yeah, I suppose you don't want consumers driving any race sleds around huh?" I asked.

"Race sleds? Oh hell no. These were prototype consumer sleds. Kawasaki was going to be the first to introduce consumer IFS sleds. We had them all ready to go into production when Corporate pulled the plug on the snowmobile program". A mild pause as I collected my thoughts. "Then what happened to the race sleds?" I asked. "Don't know. I never saw them. But I do know the guy at corporate that would know that. Let me give him a call, and I'll call you back. He'd know what happened to them."

Cool. The trail was hot again!

I waited patiently for a week and tried Lee again. He had not heard from the person who might know more about the Sharks, but would keep trying. He did tell me that when the had the facility in Shakopee, one of the SnoPro sleds was stolen. But the moron who stole it parked it in his front yard and was arrested and the sled recovered within a few hours of its disappearance. I never heard from Lee again, nor have I tried to contact him again. I later found out who he was trying to contact at Kawasaki. It was, I believe, his former boss. After several frustrating days of trying to find this guy within Kawasaki, I was told he had quit just a few days before.

As the temperature dropped here in Minneapolis, the trail seemed to be getting colder. So I decided to start contacting anyone associated with the Kawasaki race program. First on my list: Ray Tuggle, the teams primary engine builder.

Part 5: Shark Details with Ray Tuggle