Motorsports growing in size and speed

Aug. 8—Whether it's a pontoon, fishing boat, side-by-side or four-wheeler, more Minnesotans are enjoying them for recreation. And they continue to get bigger and faster.

Tony Steffensmeier, who with his dad Pat owns Mankato Motorsports, said larger and faster versions of side-by-sides are increasingly favored.

"They're like the pickup version of the side-by-side. They're popular here because you can use them for work or farming or hunting."

Lee Gansen, owner of Dranttel Sales and Service in St. Peter, is seeing the same thing.

"The bigger side-by-sides sell fastest. Some of them can go 70 mph or more."

Different counties have different rules on whether or what kind of side-by-sides can be driven on roads, shoulders or in the ditches.

When it comes to heading out on the water, pontoons remain big sellers and more of them are larger, more powerful and more luxuriously equipped.

For anglers, fishing boats are also decked out and often carry a variety of technology.

Supply headaches

No matter what customers are looking for, they usually have to wait once they've settled on what they want to buy.

Supply chain issues and manufacturing backlogs continue in the motorsports industry, as it does in most every other sector.

"It seems it even got a little worse (than earlier in the (pandemic), Steffensmeier said. "But I think it's starting to let up some. And I think our industry isn't as bad as some other industries. There's a lot of electronics on the newer stuff but not as much as on a car or a refrigerator or something."

Gansen sees the same thing.

"It hasn't improved. With getting parts it's been slightly better lately, but it's still pretty much status quo," he said.

The delay in getting things, he said, is similar for all manufacturers. "The worst part is, no one really has given any inkling of when or if it's going to get better," Gansen said.

"We have a couple of boats on hand unspoken for," Gansen said. "Otherwise everything is pre-sold. We have boats we ordered last July or September that are just starting to trickle in or we're still waiting for them to arrive."

The situation, like at car dealerships, has left showrooms and lots a lot more bare.

"We've got one side-by-side on the floor and no four-wheelers,"Gansen said.

Steffensmeier said they've tried to stock up on parts when they can get them so they have them on hand when a boat or side-by-side comes in.

"It used to be that your customer would come in on a Saturday and the sales person worked with them and and got them on the way the same day. Now they want to buy and the machines aren't coming for maybe six weeks and we need 10 parts for the accessories they want so you have to scramble to find things," he said.

"We used to have 100 machines in stock and a lot of money tied up in them; now we have a lot of money tied up in parts because you need to have what you can when machines come in."

He said the fact a lot of businesses are storing what they can lay their hands on has also made it even more difficult to find warehouse space to rent.

Despite the delays, the dealers say demand remains strong, with sales holding steady compared to recent years.

"But it's tough when a customer walks in your door and you're not able to send them home with something," Gansen said. "It's frustrating but that's just the way it is. You can weather no products for four or five months, but when it's going on two years it's tough."

Inflation, coupled with the delays, also is causing some pain.

Sometimes people who ordered something months ago and put down a down payment are seeing the manufacturers hike the prices.

"So there are some tough conversations with customers sometimes," Steffensmeier said.

Full service

Pat Steffensmeier, Tony's father, said Mankato Motorsports has expanded its offerings and services.

"On the pontoon side we try to be full service. Customers don't want to come to one place for a boat and another place for a trailer and another place for a dock."

In 2018 Mankato Motorsports bought the former Rasmussen College building along Highway 14 in Mankato, greatly expanding their space.

"The building was a great improvement but it's already full, with doing more and more of the boat and dock business," Tony Steffensmeier said.

They have about 30 employees. "We could always use a few more, but we feel lucky with who we have — we have good people," he said.