- Location
- Lake McQueeney, TX
Go ride your dirtbike and quit bitchin. It's more fun anyway.
Everyone keeps going back to the sales thing. You all are forgetting that they sell almost every 2 stroke ski out every spring. They are only allowed by law to sell and produce 200 or so. If they where allowed to sell more, I guarantee they would make more. Before the EPA rules, they where producing 500 or more each per year. After the rules, the X-2, 650sx, the FX-1, 550sx, Blaster and all other forms of small 2 stroke where canned within a year or so and they made only enough stand ups to meet Homoligation. Kawi brought back the X-2 overseas because there was no EPA over there. Yamaha produced the 800 blaster overseas as well. I guess this is a chicken/egg argument but I have been in this industry as a rider, tech and salesman for more than 18 years now. Stand ups and small craft died purely because of the EPA. Manufacturers put r&d into four strokes because they had to. The EPA demanded it in the late '90s. That's when all the great skis died. From that point on, you cannot compare sales numbers because the numbers are clearly scewed by what they where allowed to produce. The profit margin is much higher on a two stroke as long as the EPA doesn't limit your production numbers to 200 per year. Once your limited, it makes little since to keep producing the 2 stroke. This is a perfect example of big powerful government taking our rights away from us. At the current rate of production, there are less that 4 skis sold per state from each manufacturer. There is no way that can possibly impact the environment but of course, the EPA is not about the environment, it's about power. Power we grant them by voting in corrupt politicians year after year. Take away the EPA back in the 90's and stand ups, blasters, and x-2 would still reign king. There was never any shortage of interest in skis until all the global warming environmental crap came to the front in the mid to late '90s. They are to blame, period. Ignore this and your just being ignorant. Once you know the cause of the problem, you can fix it. Until we understand what we are up against and do something to stop it, we can forget about riding stand ups in the distant future. Anyways, do you really think they will stop at this point. The next step is to tell us that we can't use 2 strokes at all. If we don't speak up now, it is coming. Mark my words.