September 19, 2007
Snake Bit At Deerhurst
I have been here at Deerhurst for the past three days attending our Yamaville dealer conference and its been an awesome event to date. I did a little review of the logistics and came up with this: We have approximately 50 motorcycles on site with 25 in use for demo-riding which includes the new XV1900 cruiser, MT01, an R6 (now slightly
used ‘oops’) and road legal WR X and R. On the dirt we have 20 Rhinos and ATV’s heavy on the new 700FI engines. Waverunners only 8 units but that includes the new supercharged 1800 SHO. The outboards and boats number over 50 with 22 rigged and floating many with BIG power and another 30+ on display including some of our 
sponsored bass and go fast guys. Over 700 dealers and staff are here to ride and drive the products. We’ve gone though 5000 liters of fuel and at least triple that in ‘refreshments’. Our vendor village is full of business partners everyone from Supertrax to other large inflatables (no pun intended ; -)
It has been great talking to a lot of my old friends and meeting some new ones. A hi-lite for me personally has been all the positive comments I have gotten on this blog, seems the Vmax4 post has special meaning for a lot of us. I met a dealer / racer last night who introduced himself to me as ‘Frees-tyler’ who is recognized here at SledTalk and over on TY. What an interesting guy, he drummed up a few ghosts as he was racing under our umbrella back in the Chris Vincent days and hanging with another Saskatchewan boy, Blair Morgan.
He had one of the very few first edition mono-shock skid frames designed by Masao Furusawa (now running the factory Moto-GP program) that debuted on snocross tracks around 1997-99. He confirmed what Gordy Muetz (former Yamaha racing manager) had once told me… the suspension worked awesome provided you didn’t let up on the throttle and attacked everything straight-on. There was no line picking and timing the bumps… kinda explained why Vincent was one of the only guys who could make it work. He was a bull behind the bars especially when compared to Tony Haikonnen and his Euro /MX riding style.
I had quietly installed one of these early mono skid-frames, acquired directly from YMC, in an SX700 to which I also added some Power Inc triple pipes and performed a little creative grinding. The reason for this: we were working on a new prototype to be launched the following year as the SXViper. This was to have a mono-shock skid and 130 hp single pipe engine. I figured my little project sled would offer a good facsimile of the new Viper and give me a good base line for evaluating the new sled. The same character of the mono-shock seen on the race track was even more evident on the trail. Now I’m no Chris Vincent but back then I was willing to stand up and hit some good size craters at speed, I don’t think I ever was able to bottom the thing out. I fiddled with the pre-load and adjustments but it needed a spring and valving which simply wasn’t available (at least to me). The other thing it simply wouldn’t do was weight transfer, I had a 128×1 inch track and all it would do is blow all the power out the snow-flap, skis firmly planted on the ground. Cornering was another issue as it tended to over steer and I had to use the track spin to loosen it up and back it into the corners. On a pool table smooth trail it was a fun sled but I learned quickly not to let other people try it especially if they weren’t ‘blue’ riders to begin with as it was sure to leave them with a less than favorable impression.
I really wanted this new suspension to work. At the time the Pro-Action Plus skid frame which debuted on the 96 Vmax, was getting left behind by our competitors largely due to its digressive nature towards the end of the stroke when it would fall through it’s last bit of travel and bottom hard enough to loosen a filling on occasion. And so it was with a certain trepidation I boarded a plane bound for Anchorage AK. I was to to join Jim Kedinger and our testing team in Paxson to evaluate the prototype Viper with the new rear suspension. My old friend Masa Saitoh was the project leader on this sled. He had come over a few days prior my arrival to test it. I knew something was up when we first spoke of the sled, he became quite reserved and did not venture a comment. I remember riding off the Denali onto a rough portage trail, with my SX mono experience and expectations. The first big hit bottomed and pitched the proto so hard I found myself clinging to the bars, feet in the air staring down at the ski tips!! In the end, the guys had chased every combination available to them given the existing parts trying to dial in a compromise of handling, acceleration and ride comfort. Well one out of three ain’t so bad eh? It was comfortable provided you didn’t ride too fast BUT, the target for SXViper was a big bump sled. It was a very difficult meeting for me. I really wanted to see the Pro-Action replaced, it was time, but this sled was just not ready. I voted to postpone it for another season which meant no new model for 2001. What happened after that was even more depressing. As it turned out the mono couldn’t be redesigned even given another year and so came the SXViper a year late and with the ProAction skid. Some of you might remember the ride quality of the SXViper was a ‘little’ stiff, well the only way we we could control bottoming for a very aggressive rider was to spring and valve for a Vincent attack. We got our bump sled, then had to turn around and offer free, softer shocks (well almost free) for people who didn’t ride like Vincent, or had less than a 44 inch waist line.
What I didn’t know was one engineer (Mr. Imamura) kept working on the mono-shock even after it was officially abandoned. It became his personal hobby, to find a geometry that worked. Three years later it was ready and introduced on the 05 RX-1. I for one, am darned glad he stayed with it. I prefer the new mono-shocks ride over anything else on the market for my style of riding. It’s sweet spot isn’t that big but when you get it dialed in for weight and conditions I feel its one of the best ‘make the bumps go away’ skids in the business.
I found an interesting article by Snow Tech on the development if you want to read a bit more… Well I have to go, our dealers are heading for the airport and we have several transport rigs waiting to be loaded. cheers cr
This is absolutely not relevant to this post. I hope you don’t deem it abusive as it isn’t meant to be.
Any way that I can, I would like to apply pressure to manufactures selling product in Canada. I snowchecked an FX Nytro RTX ER in April. I have since watched our dollar climb in value both relative to the US dollar (15% from February 2 till today) and against the Japan Yen (10% from February 2 till today).
Any pricing negotiated with Yamaha Canada and corportate on this equipment before this dollar climb needs to be adjusted for the end consumer.
Assuming all other costs outside the native currency are the same (in reality they are probably cheaper such as over seas shipping due to the dollar) and any costs inside the country are the same (distribution) it stands to reason that Yamaha Canada is making much more profit from these machines at the expense of loyal customers who snow checked earlier in the year.
Why can’t Yamaha do the right thing? Right now the difference for my machine at todays rates and posted MSRPs is almost $3100. Why can’t Yamaha cut the prices or at the very least pony up some free accessory bucks (off their own backs, not the backs of the dealers whos hands are tied in this and just get to be the bad guy doing the actual plundering)?
Some manufacturer is going to be the first to do this. I hope it is Yamaha as I have been Yamaha owner and lover since I was 5 years old, 27 years ago. However rest assured, this will be my last (if I take delivery at all) if this overpriced situation isn’t rectified.
Thanks for your time and sorry for being off topic.
Hey Jeff, You are correct, you are off-topic and outside the terms of use… however it is personally important to me you understand we hear you and this subject is top of mind for our management team. It effects all Canadian consumers not just sledders or Yamaha. I will let it stand, so you know your message is delivered. Now lets talk about sleds and please don’t ‘shoot the messenger’ here… cr
September 20th, 2007 at 10:54 amOne thing I’ve wondered about Yamaha is why they didn’t seem to want to follow the crowd in rear skid design? Polaris has been using the same basic skid design since at least the late 70′s and it proved both durable and performed well. I was happy to see that my new Nytro came with a Polaris style rear skid. I’m hoping it will be more robust than my ’05 Vector skid.
Scott, We seldom follow the crowd, hec look at our 4-stroke direction.. I hope Polaris continues to use 1970ish skid frames and yes, robust it is… cheers
September 20th, 2007 at 12:34 pmSome black electrical tape around the thumb side and ‘voila’….the bumps go away.
September 20th, 2007 at 2:40 pmdnr
To the author of this article on the Viper. I am currently restoring the last known true Viper Snow X race sled. I would like to email you directly with regards to this sled, history, development etc… I have many questions and I am looking for some additional information. I am also the author of Yamaha’s 40th Anniversary of the Snowmobile Book. http://www.toizrit.com/yamahabook.htm My direct email is: toizrit@comcast.net
Thanks in advance for contacting me directly.
Thanks,
Jon Bertolino
November 29th, 2009 at 2:43 pm