On March 22, 2011, the rather peculiar tracks on this Jeep (above) carried it through several feet of snow that had been accumulating undisturbed all winter. Stan Tull of Track Vehicle Solutions distributes them locally and expects them to be just as useful during mud season.
This winter brought a lot of snow to the Northland. Stan Tull lives pretty far off the beaten track, about a mile past the portion of Murmur Creek Road that the county plows. Every year, the private road he shares with his neighbor Jim Malters gets narrower and narrower as winter goes on, and eventually, he’s been reduced to getting in and out by snowmobile. That changeover, he said, has been “excruciating.”
Pulling suitcases and groceries home behind a snowmobile wasn’t much fun for Stan’s wife, Pat Campanaro, who commutes from the Twin Cities, so last year, she made only a couple of trips up here during the snow season.
But not anymore.
Stan – along with Malters as co-owner — has a solution that requires absolutely no plowing, and Pat can ride home in comfort inside the toasty interior of their 1999 Isuzu Rodeo. He replaced the wheels with specially designed tracks made out of common snowmobile tracks – and now his little Rodeo can move through snow like nobody’s business.
The tracks look rather peculiar. They are triangular and quite a bit larger than regular wheels. Every time Stan drives his vehicle into town (which he has done at speeds up to 50 m.p.h.), he gets about 60 extra hits on his blog site, murmurcreekobservatory. blogspot.com.
Pat was pretty skeptical when Stan bought his first set last fall from the guys who make them in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (where they have Snow with a capital S). Her reaction, according to Stan, was, “I’m married to a moron.”
She is a believer now.
The invention
Stan is a distributor for a small company called American Track Truck inChassell, Michigan, which tested many prototypes before coming up with just the right design, Stan said. a The concept had started with a company called Mattrax in Karlstad, Minnesota, which builds tracks for the military,
Stan said, but American Track dTruck wanted to offer something at a lower price.
The company’s website, www.americantracktruck.com, includes a brief history:
“American Track Truck was started as a side project by a few friends (an engineer, a mechanic, a product designer, and a couple of others) in the Chassell area of Upper Michigan when they realized that a huge void existed in the tracked vehicle market for snow applications. Basically the market offers two choices— snowmobiles and full-size trail groomers (snow cats), and nothing in between.
“The lack of options became apparent when the Chassell Snowmobile Club tried to purchase a vehicle to groom a ¼ mile race track for its annual ice festival and found nothing suitable or affordable. A snowmobile cannot pull a heavy enough groomer drag to make a decent trail, it exposes the operator to the cold, and [it] has no storage capacity. A full-size trail groomer is often overkill, weighing in excess of 10,000 pounds and costing about $100,000 new. Used trail groomers sell for much less but can easily bankrupt a small operation with constant repair bills.
“So, in 2005, American Track Truck was established with a mission to create light/ medium-weight tracked vehicles with heavy-duty capabilities at affordable prices. After several years of research and development, American Track Truck finally opened for business in January of 2008.
“…American Track Truck sells both tracked trucks and track systems. …Our vehicle is basically an SUV or pick-up truck that you can utilize all year round. And if you ever decide to update to a newer model vehicle, you can simply transfer the equipment from one vehicle to another. … Original tires and wheels are always included so that you can use the vehicle normally, within minutes, if you desire.
“…Our track systems began with the Sno-Tracks series, and have now evolved into the Dominator series. They are the lightest on the market at about 170 pounds each, allowing for easy, one-person installation. Dominators provide excellent floatation, reducing the vehicle’s ground pressure to less than 2 pounds per square inch, making it nearly impossible to get stuck, even in the deepest snow, slush, mud, marsh, swamp, sand, etc.”
Although tracks can be shipped to Cook County, Stan traveled to Michigan to deal with one of the principal owners when he purchased his own. “I really wanted to meet this guy,” he said, “because I believe in what he’s done.”
The experiment
Stan took this reporter on a ride on March 22, 2011, starting out on about two feet of packed snow on Murmur Creek Road and continuing on to his private road, covered with about three feet of snow, which he grooms with a groomer he made to pull behind his Rodeo. He was so confident in the tracks, however (or so curious), that he did some experimenting for himself at the same time.
Stan had installed tracks for some neighboring cabin owners who live on a high bluff at the end of a very long, treacherous road and had been storing their vehicle in his garage all winter, bringing them their vehicle whenever they come up. He has garage doors at both ends of his garage, and he decided to see how their vehicle would do if he exited the garage from the end that hasn’t been plowed all winter.
Their vehicle made it out like a charm.
In his Rodeo, Stan veered off the road (not exactly on purpose) into the deep, soft snow of the ditch, but he was able to back right out.
A final experiment was to forge through undisturbed snow on an uphill pathway leading through a field. The bottom of the Rodeo was plowing snow, but it made it, and Stan was able to turn around and get back to the road with no problem. The county highway crew had previously egged him on to demonstrate the tracks, so upon succeeding with this rather daring experiment, he declared, “The county boys would be proud!”
Stan operates his tracks in two-wheel drive a lot of the time, but four-wheel drive is more appropriate for the heavy-duty tasks.
The possibilities
This winter, Stan brought a cabin owner in to his cabin because the snow was too deep for him to snowshoe in as planned. Stan made a trail as he went that the owner snowmobiled out on.
“Sooner or later,” Stan said, “someone should start asking me to rescue some of these people who get themselves stuck in their cars on snowmobile trails!”
Stan looks forward to mud season, when he will be able to get in and out of his property on his 16-inch-wide tracks — distributing less weight per square inch than a car — without tearing up his little road.
Stan is available to demonstrate, install, and maintain track systems, which cost $8,600 a set. Whatever parts may be needed for maintenance can be purchased at Steve’s Sports in Grand Marais. Stan’s business is called Track Vehicle Solutions, and he can be reached at (612)202-3789 or mco@boreal.org.
“All I know,” Stan said, “is I’m not plowing, and I’m a happy camper!”
Leave a Reply