Part III

Dave and Durmont finally decided to make it formal and started a partnership in August of 1981 - Wahl Brothers was born. At first they worked out of Durmont's garage, now complete with a fridge and air-conditioning. In that same season, Dave and Durmont built the first Wahl Brothers special that was for sale. During the rest of the year, they built suspension and suspension parts for oval and drag racing. They also did some motor work to fill in. They built tracks as well, including replacement tracks for Certified Parts Corporation (CPC) while Arctic Cat was out of business. They built replacement tracks for all the Arctic Cat models that CPC sold.

Dave continued to race in 1981-82, and with the new rules was even paid $250 just to show up at a race. They ran round robin races back then, and each driver was paid $50 per heat, so just running the races in a weekend, Dave could make $500. Combined with Dave's winnings - it was a pretty good racing season for Team Wahl.

For the 1983-84 Wahl special racers, they got their first custom built hoods, working with hood making legend Kenny Halverson of Thief River Falls. These sleds would be the first of 13 production line oval racers - all completely built by the Wahl Brothers. Each originally sold for between $4,000 and $4,500. That year they also built 12 drag sleds that sold from between $2,000 and $2,500 each.

At this time, the Wahl brothers started building and selling custom racing hoods for oval and drag racing. They also built racing skis, both leaf spring & IFS skis, as well and special light weight drag racing skis.

One hallmark of the Wahl Brothers is that they have always had a goal of keeping snowmobile racing alive and thriving. To do that, the made sure they always shared info on what they knew worked. To this day, many of the top racers are still getting info, parts and encouragement from the Wahl brothers on a regular basis.

Since 1984, the Wahls have built race sleds every year. Production numbers varied, to as many as 30 in a single year - including ovals and drag sleds.

In 1984-85 Dave ran a Wahl Special in the big classes, but also raced an Arctic Cat El Tigre in the Stock "B" class. For the 1985-86 season, they converted the El Tigre to a Formula III chassis that Dave also ran.

In 1986, Wahl brothers moved operations from Durmont's garage at his house into a dedicated 50 x 75 shop, just East of Greenbush Minnesota.

For the 1986-87 season, Wahl built their winningest sled ever to date. It was a straight axle front end with an aluminum bulkead, single tracker. With this sled, Dave won the world series in1987. Racing had become dominated by twin trackers by now and this Wahl single track sled was giving the twin trackers a fit!

But 1987 was the last year they ran a single track for many years. They started running the red Ski-Doo factory sponsored sled in 1987-88. This is a big and scary step to take when you live in Polaris and Arctic Cats' back yard!

In 1988 they finally moved to twin tracks, choosing to build them as well. The very fist twin track started with a ski-doo twin track chassis, but ran a custom suspension, custom tracks, and a 340 Rotax motor. The sled blew up at least 11 times, until they found out they used Heat fuel treatment that was separating the gas from the oil. More knowledge they are happy to share with modern day customers!

The Wahl twin trackers were never built for resale. The Wahls would just sell the previous years racer and build a new one every year for Dave to race.

In 1990 Dave finally scored the big one at the famed Eagle River Wisconsin World Championship. They started by building their new twin track sleds, complete with new Wahl hoods, tracks, suspensions & belt drive. They were running specially modified Rotax motors.

As the racing began in Eagle River on Thursday (there was a rainout the week before), Dave won all his heats and finals. In one of the first heat races, Dave's sled went sideways and he was struck by Jacque Villenueve in turn two. Jacque's sled was done for the weekend. Dave was stunned by the accident and his leg hurt a bit.

Dave's sled had a folded up tunnel and clutch guard. Durmont and the crew hammered the sled back into shape, and Dave was allowed to restart the race. He won the heat and the final. The next day, Dave could not get out of bed. The pain in his leg was too great. A short consultation with the Doctor confirmed the race teams fears - Dave had a broken ankle.

This is an injury that would have stopped most drivers - rightfully so - but Dave's sled was just running too good to pass up the opportunity to be crowned "World's Champion". Fitted with an air cast, Dave continued to race the rest of the weekend. At first the adhesive on the bottom of the air cast made it so he could not move his leg on the running board causing intense pain. But they removed the strip and the snow made the running board a bit more slick.

Dave was the fastest qualifier, beating the track record! Dave lead the championship for the entire race, leaving Eagle River with about $22,000 in prize money for the weekend, plus a new fur coat!

Part IV