

At least my car had proven its worth when I was at Ski-Doo’s, beating the executives on their customary Friday night timed runs to lake Brompton. They drove assorted Shelbys and Cobras, a Lotus Elite and other priceless cars to the fancy restaurant near their plush cottages 23.45 miles away from the Bombardier factory. On this river-gravel road with ball bearing properties, the modest-looking Peugeot had beaten those cars by well over two minutes. I couldn’t wait for Sno*Jet to beat them again in snowmobile races. Teaming up with the genial Duane Aho and the legendary Jim Adema, we think of having been instrumental in Bombardier closing down their racing program right after Jim won the Kawartha Cup two years in a row. Wearing their chic coordinated regalia while attending the races, the yellow hooded SkiDoo bosses and black garbed mechanics could not afford to lose face in as many races as they did that year. From the Alaska 500 to the Newfie100, it was a disaster of epic propotion for the proud company. As a trivial consolation for myself, this probably locked up the building I had helped design near their guarded SkiDoo racetrack in Valcourt.
1969 Valcourt, QC
Conroy had made a bold move publishing this ad in ‘72. It paid off in spades, but we are getting ahead of ourselves. Many months earlier, they had started their racing program in Burlington VT with much hope in the engineer Duane Aho at the helm. With Mario Andretti and both of the Unsers in their advertising pages, they had the full attention of snow- mobilers everywhere.
I had not yet joined Sno*Jet at that time, still with Bombardier collecting knowledge for various tasks but also going to the races. My boss did not approve as he had me on seven day a week architectural work for the top shareholders, concealed in a back office so that he could take all the credit for my results. But I fooled him. Since I owned a Nikon F1 camera with a motor drive. It was capable of 8 photos per second when actuated by a long electric cable, and so the
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