Paul Groth | Snowmobile Hall of Fame (2024)

A fantastic fabricator and passionate pursuer of speed, Paul Groth of Frontenac, Minnesota was a driving force in snowmobile speed run competition during its second heyday in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Groth built three iterations of the Budweiser Sno-King speed machines, set multiple NSSR World Speed Run records, recorded a 201.469 mph run in 1992 and helped progress the sport’s safety with a degree of professionalism that defined his success.

Groth brought the Boss Cat II back to life in 1983, and was a chief protagonist among the competitive personalities, fantastic machines and outstanding speeds of the 1980’s speed run era. In 1987 Groth built and tuned the fastest snowmobile in the world – the Budweiser Sno-King – which ran 168.093 mph in a quarter-mile. Groth himself broke the magical 200-mph barrier in 1992 during an exhibition run in the Bud Sno-King II. And when speed run rules changed to allow only snowmobile engine power in 1993, Groth fabricated a four-engine speedster (Sno-King III) and once again set the NSSR Unlimited Class speed record for that season.

A brilliant engineer who also understood the marketing possibility of fast snowmobiles, Groth was rightfully lauded for securing the highly-visible Budweiser sponsorship that lasted for a full decade. Yet it was his ingenious engineering and fabrication of highly-specialized, furiously-fast snowmobiles and his role in creating the second “Golden Age” of speed runs are Groth’s greatest accomplishments.