20035 zr 900

This Cat is powerful. It's fast. No denying any of it. But what we didn't know was just how would powering through packed snow affect its performance from earlier in the month on nearly sheer ice pack?

The differences were quite impressive. This was the exact same sled, with the exact same rider, with the same studding pattern and setup. Yet, as we suspected, conditions played an enormous role in the sled's overall performance. At the start the ZR900 rolled out to the first 60 feet in a similar hot manner at both lake locations. But when the sled's 150-horsepower powertrain had to slog into and pull though the half-foot of snow, it slowed down. As you would expect!

By the first 330 feet, the ZR was already down 11 miles per hour and a full second to its best run on a sheer ice surface earlier in the month. Getting to 60 miles per hour took an extra 1.44 seconds in the deeper snow. And top speed by the quarter-mile was off by 13 miles per hour!

With all things - except snow conditions - being equal, conditions can make a big difference. Oh, yeah, the big Cat's speedometer was reading well into triple digits even though our radar was reading just over 90 mph.

But, as with other tests that we do and report on, make of this what you will. These are the results we recorded on a specific day with a specific sled.

Elmonet Facility (ice lake)

0-60 ft Sec .....2.25
0-330 ft Sec .....5.39
0-330 ft Mph ....75.49
0-660 ft Sec .....8.10
0-660 ft Mph .....91.52
0-1000 ft Sec .....10.58
0-1000 ft Mph .....99.36
0-1320 ft Sec .....12.76
0-1320 ft Mph .....103.66
0-60 mph Sec .....4.01

Area 330 Test Facility
(6-8 inches snow)
0-60 ft Sec.....2.36
0-330 ft Sec .....6.03
0-330 ft Mph .....64.48
0-660 ft Sec .....9.15
0-660 ft Mph .....78.10
0-1000 ft Sec .....11.96
0-1000 ft Mph .....85.88
0-1320 ft Sec .....14.42
0-1320 ft Mph .....90.45
0-60 mph Sec .....5.45