Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/379417
FOCUS PSB Snow www.PowersportsBusiness.com Powersports Business • September 8, 2014 • 21 One of those that will be at Haydays is the Ace bar, the tallest bar in the industry that is ideal for groomed snow on trails, Tiede said. "With the rider-forward sleds, shorter keels and more off-trail riding, we needed to build something that was more aggressive." Tiede expects the annual Haydays affair to be another step forward for the industry. "The manufacturers are up, the distributors are up. The d e a l e r s s o l d s n o w p ro d u c t through April, then rain came so they didn't sell a lot of motor- cycle stuff," he said. "They're already thinking about snow, which they haven't done in many, many years at this point in the year. It's exciting. And no dealers are sitting on anything. They're keeping money in their pocket, waiting for fall to hit. Haydays is going to be exciting this year, with products already arriving in the dealerships. It's the first positive vibe we've had in a lot of years." PSB Access fight ends for SAWS The Snowmobile Alliance of Western States (SAWS), which supported snowmo- bilers' right to ride, announced in August that SAWS volunteers unanimously voted to disband the organization effective Sept. 1, which also happens to be the 10-year anniversary of SAWS. SAWS volunteer staffers Scott Chap- man, Dave Hurwitz, John Jones, Susie Rainsberry and Mindy Walker wrote a let- ter announcing the decision. A portion of it follows. When SAWS was launched in the sum- mer of 2004, we had grand ideas of what could be accomplished with enough assis- tance from snowmobilers. Nothing like SAWS had ever been done before in the snowmobiling community — a multi- state, pro-snowmobile access organization with ZERO membership fees and an all- volunteer staff. We felt with free member- ship, there would be no reason not to join SAWS. We had also expected to easily find dozens of volunteers in multiple states. One of the primary reasons we formed SAWS was to make information easy to find regarding potential closures to snowmobiling areas. Our volunteer staff researched the information, deciphered it and delivered a meaningful message with clear action items that was intended to engage snowmobilers in the process. Given the vast amount of information available from well-funded, anti-motorized organizations such as Winter Wildlands Alliance, the Wilderness Society and many more localized groups, it seemed realistic that a similar model for communication should work for snowmobilers. SAWS was very successful in achiev- ing a large membership. We have over 4,000 members, made up of individuals, clubs, organizations and associations from across the country. If we were to include the individual members of all of our mem- ber groups, SAWS probably has tenfold the 4,000 members that receive our informa- tion. It is impossible to count how many non-member snowmobilers gain valuable information from our website. On this front we were enormously successful. Our position from the beginning was to be the ONLY snowmobile organiza- tion that would take the firm position of "NO MORE WILDERNESS," as we felt the existing 104.5 million acres at that time (2004) was plenty. Unfortunately there are now 109.5 million acres of wilderness in the US. We were never an organization that cared to only protect snowmobile use on groomed trails. We believe the majority of our members were more into backcoun- try off-trail riding – although access to the backcountry riding area by means of groomed trails was also important. ... Why did SAWS finally come to the deci- sion to disband? Our number one reason was the lack of volunteer assistance. The majority of our current staff have volun- teered for SAWS since the very beginning, which was just over 10 years ago. All of our volunteers, past and present, have put in numerous hours — too many hours to even try and count. PSB HAYDAYS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19 Larry Tiede of Woody's met with WPS sales reps during the distributor's snowmobile dealer show in Minneapolis last month.