The 1989 Jeep I-500 revisited

After the famed Winnipeg-to-St Paul I-500 snowmobile race was run for the last time in 1980, there was a noticeable absence of an extreme point-to-point cross-country terrain race. That is, until 1987 when a 500-mile snowmobile race from Thunder Bay Ontario to White Bear Lake Minnesota was established. The Jeep corporation was one of the early sponsors to promote the race and almost immediately any reference to the then-new event was simply referred to as “The Jeep”.

While we recently were in the hallowed ArcticInsider photo archives we came across a group of photos from the 1989 running of the Jeep 500. One of the first images viewed we immediately recognized as Mike Carver. Today you will find Mike as the chief shock specialist at his company Carver Performance in Fosston Minnesota; building and servicing shocks for some of the biggest names in snowmobile racing, and for recreational riders alike.

We reached out to Mike and asked him to tell us a little more about his run in the 1989 Jeep. Mike tells us that in 1989 he was working at RV Sports in Thief River Falls, and was racing a lot of regional races on weekends. He ran his first Jeep 500 in 1987 on a Yamaha SRV. He ran the Jeep again in 1988 on an El Tigre 5000.

When we asked him about his choice of a Cougar with a 500 fan-cooled engine in the 1989 Jeep, he says that he was somewhat influenced by the success of the Polaris Indy Trail 488 fan models had in the 1987 and 1988 running of that race. And, he said that his Cougar competed well against the Indy Trails in most of the regional races that he raced in leading up to the Jeep.

Mike had pretty quick memories of the 1989 race course. He told us that he was in one of the later flights to leave Thunder Bay on day one, that there was a lot of freshly fallen snow, and that the trail was really whooped out by the time dozens of sleds had already raced over it. Day two started near Grand Marias Minnesota and was approximately a race down what we know as the CJ Ramstad North Shore Trail, all the way to Duluth.

He recalls an inverted start to begin day two that definitely put him on a smoother course than day one allowed, but that as the trail opened up more it was allowing some higher speed running than expected and the lesser horsepower of his Cougar was starting to show. Day 3 was the final run from Duluth to White Bear Lake with lots of high-speed rail bed running.

Mike didn’t win the 1989 Jeep, but he and his Cougar did sail across the finish line in White Bear Lake and that is no small task in a race of that magnitude.

We recognize some of the people in these images, but many we don’t. If you happen to recognize anyone in these images, feel free to share. We’d love to hear!