Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Ayanna Eckblad

This year marked a special milestone for the company Polaris. The Minnesota-based outdoor vehicle giant has been in business for 70 years and celebrated the occasion with an event in mid-August.

At the event, longtime Northwood residents Kenny Stambaugh and Tom Stevens gifted a famous snowmobile, a 1994 Polaris XCR Special, to its original owner, three-time International 500 Snowmobile Race winner Jack Struthers.

Both Stambaugh and Stevens said collecting, preserving and trading vintage snowmobiles is a hobby they have had most of their lives.

“I’ve always been into it,” Stevens said. He added he is always on the lookout for vintage and collectible snowmobiles and snowmobile parts.

Coincidentally, he began the hobby in 1994, the year the Polaris XCR he would later restore won the I-500 race.

The road to getting the infamous 1994 snowmobile to the Polaris anniversary event was not straightforward.

Following the 1994 I-500 race, Struthers traded the snowmobile back to Polaris, who used it when creating the next XCR model. After it was finished serving its purpose, the sled was sold at auction.

Stevens discovered the 1994 snowmobile while looking for vintage snowmobiles on Facebook Marketplace. It was in the possession of one of his old high school friends. Stevens decided to buy the snowmobile because he knew it was a collectible. At the time, however, he did not know the vehicle’s significance or history in the I-500 race. He said it was in pretty rough shape, and he was not sure he wanted to do anything with it at all.

Later, he sold the sled to someone in Mason City before buying it back shortly after. Stevens eventually sold the snowmobile to Stambaugh, who planned on using parts from the vehicle for other projects.

After getting the snowmobile running, Stambaugh decided to keep it intact and began researching the type of sled it was. While doing research, he came across information and photos of that particular model, and its role in the I-500 race. He noticed the similarities between the vehicle in the race and the one he owned.

“I started reading … There was a picture of a guy in the I-500 and I thought, ‘those numbers look kind of like mine,’” Stambaugh said.

He decided to get in touch with Jack Struthers, who looked at the VIN number and confirmed that the vehicle was, in fact, the same one he used to win the 1994 I-500 race.

“When I found that out, I called Tom and I said, ‘You’re never going to believe this,’” Stambaugh said. Both men described the discovery as the opportunity of a lifetime.

“With it being the I-500 winner, it’s pretty iconic in the snowmobile world,” Stevens said.

The two decided to fix the snowmobile up and make it look like it did in 1994, something they described as a preservation project rather than a restoration.

“We wanted to keep the original patina and the look as it was raced,” Stevens said.

When the project was completed, Stambaugh brought up the idea to give the snowmobile back to Struthers.

The next year was spent bringing the snowmobile back to its former glory. This mainly involved cleaning, painting, acquiring and replacing a few parts and getting decals for the vehicle. They also had to reupholster the seat cover on the sled.

When the preservation process was completed, Stambaugh and Stevens brought the snowmobile to the Polaris 70th Anniversary event in Roseau, where Jack Struthers would be.

“It was so nice to give it back to him and just, you know, give something back to this sport that we just really enjoy,” said Stambaugh. “It was [really] rewarding to be able to do that.”

A photo of the snowmobile was even in Snowgoer Magazine in their Aug. 20 article, “10 images from Polaris 70th anniversary display.”

“We could have sold it,” Stevens said. “But, rather than that, we thought it’d be best to share it with the original owner and share it with the public and get it out there. It was a lot more fun and more satisfying doing that than it would have been getting monetary gain out of it.”

Right now, the preserved 1994 Polaris XCR snowmobile is on display at the Polaris Experience Center in Roseau. It will eventually go to the Snowmobile Hall of Fame in St Germain, Wisconsin.
Stevens and Stambaugh plan to continue collecting, preserving and restoring vintage snowmobiles for many years to come.