Art Bilous of Yorkton, Saskatchewan, is proud to be a part of the snowmobile racing world. For 15 years he has been an integral part of the Super Trac’s Racing Museum, where visitors can see a collection of historically impressive machines. The museum has 80 sleds on display and 35 of them are World Title sleds.
The collection includes sleds from Dave Wahl (#74) of Greenbush, Minnesota, Jacques Villeneuve (#96) of St. Cuthbert, Quebec, Brian Bewcyk (#39) of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and just recently three Team Decker sleds.
How did you get involved with the museum?
I really loved watching the sport. I went to many races and got to meet some of the best racers in the world. Building a snowmobile museum was a way to preserve racing history.
What type of sled does the museum specialize in?
These are sleds that are raced on ice—oval racing. The majority of the stuff I have has been drag-raced on ice or snow, or on an oval track.
What sparked your interest?
I started with the Saskatchewan snowmobile trail system—it started with three Bombadiers at one time. I wasn’t the only one but that was really the beginning of the Saskatchewan trail system.
Kind of a trademark we use is “the survivors of ice and snow: not just racers but legends.” There are hopes and dreams through their struggles and triumphs and they have given snowmobile racing days to remember. There are a lot of hopes and dreams in any sport, and there are a lot of struggles and triumphs—I think that’s very important.
Please tell me about some of the machines in the Super Trac’s collection:
The 1999 (Ski-Doo Formula) is the last twin tracker—last one raced, last one to win Eagle River, it’s an undefeated sled and the twin tracker never raced again. That one has the most history. It probably is the highlight of highlights. Actually the three twin trackers I have are the ’99, the ’87 Ski-Doo Formula—that’s another sister—and the ’84 Ski-Doo Formula. There were 76 of those snowmobiles built and I called them the three sisters—and for history that would be kind of like the kings of the kings, those three right there.
Another really good one is the ’79 Ski-Doo super mod and there were two of them built, one left. People remember that one. It was the AAEN performance logo sled for 20 years.
There are some Yamaha VMAX’s—there were four of them actually built for racing from Yamaha, and I have the fourth one, and that is pretty good.
I recently purchased three original Team Decker racers from Mike Decker: a 1979 Moto-Ski Sno-Pro with two World titles, a 1981 Ski-Doo Sno-Pro, which was their back-up sled and was never raced, and a 1970 Ski-Do 292 Blizzard, which was the original Team Decker racer.
