Snowmachine racers find inspiration at annual swap meet

WASILLA — For those who restore and race vintage snowmachines, one man’s trash is another’s treasure.

Just ask Vic Knott and Tom Agony. The men were among about a dozen Mat-Su Vintage Snowmachine Racers Club members out on a chilly Saturday morning looking to get rid of some old parts and pick up some fabulous finds at the club’s annual swap meet at Denali Harley-Davidson.

Walking past Knott’s truck, Agony noticed a sign on a pile of parts: “Free. Must take all.”

Agony had already agreed to take the parts when Knott asked him if there was anything specific he was looking for.

“Well, I need a carburetor,” Agony said.

“There’s a carburetor right there,” Knott points out.

“And I need an exhaust …”

“There’s an exhaust right here!”

For vintage motorheads like Knott and Agony, the pursuit of parts is often as much a pull as racing their old machines. Agony’s a Skidoo guy, preferring to race vintage Skidoo machines, while Knott is an Arctic Cat guy. In fact, the 1977 Arctic Cat 440Z Knott spent the past year rebuilding was the talk of Saturday’s swap meet.

The sleek black machine with green striping was completely rebuilt, Knott said. When he bought it a year ago from a guy in Ontario, Canada, “it was in fairly rough condition,” he said.

After an estimated 1,000 hours of work that included removing “every nut, bolt and rivet” from the machine and rebuilding it, Knott said he still has some work to do before it’s ready to race. For club members like Agony and Knott, bringing their vintage machines back to racing form is half the fun.

“I have a reflection to back when I was a kid,” Knott said about working on the old machines. “I raced these back when they were new, so it’s in my roots. I was just a few years out of high school and was fairly wild back then. I’m kind of reliving my childhood, I guess.”

Even in a sport where most are reliving those childhoods, Dave Locklear is a father figure. At age 74, Locklear is the club’s oldest member — he’s also an Arctic Cat guy — and has nurtured a decades-long love affair with vintage snowmachines.

“I go back to 1975 when I raced with Arctic Sales,” Locklear said. “Me and Arctic Cat kind of go hand-in-hand.”

Although in the twilight of his racing career, other club members say Locklear can still be a force out on the snow.

“Well, I guess I feel I’m still trying to be active in the sport,” he said. “I still love it. I can’t be competitive like I used to be, but they still know I’m there, I’ll put it that way.”

Locklear has known Knott since Knott was a teenager just getting into the sport, and Knott said all the club members respect Locklear.

“He’s still pretty aggressive,” Knott said. “Once you put a helmet on and a bib on, you can’t tell him from the other guys. He gets out there, and we’re all out there to have fun.”

Richard Knox is another in this clan of longtime vintage racers, but now he says he’d rather rebuild machines than race them.

“For me, it’s all about the hunt to find the parts, then the build itself,” he said.

He’s “always” on the lookout for old snowmachines — he’s a Skidoo guy — and parts.

“In fact, just a couple days ago I ran in to Anchorage to pick something up,” Knox said. “It wasn’t something I really needed, but it was good for parts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve chased down leads on parts. Some pan out, some don’t. I’m the type of guy who prefers to find them out in the woods, drag them home and rebuild them.”

Like eating potato chips, one isn’t enough, Knox said. “Once you start, it continues on. I’ve got probably 18 to 22 machines, most of them restored now. It never ends. I buy, sell, trade, do whatever I need to do to keep it going.”

That’s a passion Agony said he understands. He actually came to the swap meet thinking about selling a machine, but the lucky finds in the back of Knott’s pickup changed those plans.

“I was thinking about bringing my snowmachine down and selling it,” he said. “But now that I’ve got some parts, I think I’ll put it together. That’s the trap.”

Along with a love for working on and riding old snowmachines, the men at Saturday’s swap meet said they also have something else in common — very understanding and supportive wives.

“Fortunately, our wives are into it, also,” Knox said of his wife, Gina. “Well, maybe not so much ‘into it,’ but they’re very supportive of what I call ‘the sickness.’ Well, actually, maybe she’s not really ‘supportive,’ but she’s very patient.”

“We’re all married and we just have special wives, let me tell you,” Knott added.

It’s the same with Locklear and his wife of 55 years, Lucille, he said.

“She and I have been married 55 years, and she’d probably say my first love is my Arctic Cat,” Locklear said.

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.