Do SandRails work on Snow?
- Of course they do!!!
Here are a couple of pictures of one of those freak snow days that we had in Oregon. That morning, there were a half-dozen quads prowling the neighborhood, but only one sandrail!
The snow was estimated to be between 3″ and 6″ deep, and it was all fresh and soft. The paddle-tires dug into it just fine and propelled the sandrail with no problem at all. The front tires were semi-useful, and it took a lot of use of the turn brakes to keep the sandrail on course (I would not recommend running on snow if you don’t have turn-brakes — you’re likely to slide out of control into a parked car, tree, curb, or whatever….)
The sandrail would rotate nicely in place using the turning brake, much better than it does on sand.
The biggest problem was a snow getting thrown at the driver from the front wheel. The front tires throwing sand at you usually aren’t a problem, but snow is cold!
The sandrail pictured here is my completed mazda rotary sandrail (mazda 12A engine out of a RX-7).