These stories can also be heard on Sunday mornings around 10 am on WILD 102’s “Look Back in Time” program. Each week’s radio story will be posted here on our website.
Weekly radio stories are researched, compiled, and read by Sheila Winstead, RCHS Board Member.
March 24, 2024
Fifty years ago, Bob Eastman, Polaris snowmobile racer, was seriously injured and this story appeared in
the Roseau Times-Region on March 21, 1974.
Bob Eastman leaned back against the pillows on the living room day bed. Behind him, the corner of the
room was filled with trophies which stretched from floor to ceiling. Pictures of his major snowmobile
racing victories highlighted the walls. Plaques added to the impression that his climb to the Snowmobile
Hall of Fame was a long one and a tough one.
Eastman, who is known and highly respected throughout the snowmobile racing world, took just about
everything there was to take in racing prizes. He was off to a good start in the SnoPro racing circuit this
year when a January 25 accident in Alpena, Michigan not only interrupted his career, but nearly cost his
life.
Bob remembers the accident very well. “I was on the third lap … on the straightaway coming up on the
turn. When I went to turn the handlebar, it broke. I had a choice of either staying with the machine as it
went into the wall or jumping off. So I jumped!” The machine continued on into the wall, jumped over
the crowd and struck a pickup in the parking lot.
“Fortunately,” Eastman recalled, “only three people in the crowd were hurt and they were only hit by
pieces of the fence.”
For Eastman it was a different story. The impact of hitting the track at high speed fractured one
vertebrate in his back and crushed another.
Bob was rushed to the hospital in Alpena where doctors reported the back would heal if he lay still and
later wore a brace. He lay in bed for six days before they got him up and put a brace on his back.
That was almost a fateful day for it was then a blood clot raced into his heart, through that vital organ
and into the lungs. The clot was so large it ruptured other small vessels in the lungs and they filled with
blood. He was rushed to intensive care where his toughest race began.
He won it.
“The doctor said I was the only one who had had that happen and had survived,” he told the Times-
Region. “He said that if I had been 52 and a cigarette smoker, I never would have made it.” The fact that
he was in top physical condition was the margin in his favor.
When the blood clot struck, the shock reverberated not only through his home community but the
snowmobiling world as well. Eastman has been a favorite of crowds and other racers wherever he has
gone.
The cards, letters and flowers poured in. Even before that the Arctic race crew had stopped in to see him
on their way to New York. The Polaris crew stopped by twice. Gary Mathers, Polaris race director had
spent two days with him. Yamaha had sent flowers.
When news of his critical condition came, Polaris flew his wife to his bedside. Later they flew [her]
brother, Eddie Hites, there as well. “It took a lot of praying by everybody,” Mrs. Hites emphasized.
The recovery was somewhat painful. “I had to cough up blood and with a broken back, it did hurt a
little,” Eastman laughed. But his recovery was steady and on February 2 Polaris chartered an ambulance
airplane and flew him home to Roseau. “They’ve really been good to me, really concerned,” he noted.
Bob smiles when he thinks of the expressions of concern which flooded his hospital room. “My favorite
cards were from our seven-year-old son, Rodney. He sent something every day.” His daughter’s
classmates each wrote a letter …”and there were some mighty cute ones,” he chuckled. They brought
light to the intensive care room where he lay. “They cut off the telephone because I would cough so
badly when I tried to talk.” His wife was with him all the time though, “so I wasn’t lonesome.”
Now that he is home his recovery is more comfortable. “I am resting a lot and if I wear my brace I can
walk around the house,” he confided. He goes to the hospital at least once a week to have his blood
checked and has been “catching up on the paperwork I haven’t been able to get done all winter.”
He’s reading a lot and enjoying visitors as well. “The Polaris racing crew has all been by to see me. Many
of my friends have dropped in … last week I even had two visitors from Japan, from the engine
company,” he said. “I’m averaging about six visitors a day.”
Doctors tell him his back will heal quickly but his lungs will not be completely healed for about a year.
“As soon as I get a release from the doctor, I’ll be back at Polaris doing development work on next year’s
racers. I’ve been gone a long time so I’m behind. I’ll probably work on new chassis … on high
performance racing machines … if I can.”
Eastman confesses that “I’m not thinking about racing at this time,” and he does not forecast his future.
“There are some good young men in the Polaris racing team … I’m the oldest on the team so perhaps it
is time I retired,” he said.
Even if he doesn’t race, he says, “I hope to be active with the racing team … trying to build better and
faster machines.” His wife, Bonnie, who sat knitting as he talked to the Times-Region (she knitted a
whole afghan while she worried through his critical period in the hospital) feels he should race no more.
“Well,” Eastman concluded cheerfully, “I’m staying relaxed. There is no sense in worrying about
anything.”
After what he’s been through, few would disagree.
Thank you to 
(www.roseauonline.com) for letting us share our county’s history with your listeners by donating air time, studio time, and production staff every week.