Door County Ice Karting 1994-1996

In the summer of 1994 a group of Door County residents started building and studding go carts to run on the ice, I decided to join in on the fun. All of the pictures in this video were scanned in, (No digital back then), and the footage was from VHS thank you to my brother Larry Hembel for recording some of my crazy endeavors of my life, some of the tracking is not so good, but it’s all I have, Enjoy!
In the first part of this video most of the pictures are on the yearly progression of my cart, there were no rules when this first started except “no shocks”, which changed in the second year, when it first started the originators of this ice carting group wanted all Yamaha XS650 cc engines, but this soon changed to whatever you had, any engine make, model, size, 2 or 4 stroke, just build something, come on out and have fun.
My cart and one other had Honda CB 750 single overhead cam engines, others snowmobile engines, everyone built what they thought would be best or what they had on hand.
The great thing that I loved about this was it created individual thinking, you could look at the different carts and see the totally different ideas the owners had come up with, there were sprint car look-a-likes, an Indy car, an IMCA modified, just regular go carts, and even a an old sedan.
We had traveled to upper Michigan for an event on the river that was fun, but most of our racing was either in Door County at Otumba Beach or in Dyckesville on the bay. Some who participated in the Ice Kart fun besides myself are listed here, Rick Soukup, Arvid Anderson, Ken Simonsen, Scott Frea, Larry Frea, Ken Frea, Brian Duquaine, Bryan Wodack, Don Mallien, Chris Deprey, & Paul Grathen, if I missed anyone please text me your name and I will add it to my list. 920-737-3767
In 1997-1998 the winters sucked, there wasn’t enough ice for our fun; the warm weather those couple years had spoiled our fun. Some sold their carts, and some still have them.
I started using mine wherever I could; I installed an air shifter, and I took it to the Door Devils Motorcycle Club dirt drags, and also one of the Devils Knights Brush Lane outlaw drags in Little Sturgeon, all I have are mostly memories from those races.
Myself I still have my cart, summer of 2023 I got it back running, after about 15 years of sitting in my shed, I took it for one ride on the blacktop, it still has boatloads of power, but the brakes need work.
I am hoping to get it out on the ice for a run or two in the 2023-2024 season.
Below are links to other pages:
https://www.akasotech.com/
https://www.usa.canon.com/
https://www.doorcounty.com/