AmSnow.com is now SnoWest.com
Sleds of interest!AmSnow had two other extremely popular sleds in its fleet this winter, the dramatic and radical Polaris 600 Rush with its Pro Ride rear suspension and Arctic Cat's Sno Pro 500 riding in Cat's lightweight cross-country and snocross racing chassis.
Both ran well, with the Rush posting a solid top speed of 84.49 mph and a ¼-mile time of 14.57 sec- onds at a speed of 83.84 mph.
Two years ago with faster snow conditions our 120-horse 2-stroke 600 Polaris Shift turned in 92.04 mph and did the ¼-mile in 13.65 seconds at 91.23 mph. The racy Polaris 600RR on that same day delivered a 90.34 mph top speed and a nearly identical (to the Shift) 13.66 seconds in the ¼-mile.
The Rush though, was a much more stable and controlled ride, plus it lept off the line as it did 0-30 mph in just 2.03 seconds. This was one of the best starts of the day, just behind the Cat Z1 Turbo and the race-inspired Sno Pro 500.
So, what about that 500cc Cat Sno Pro?
Well, it isn't going to set any speed records, but it was far from being a "dog," posting a top speed of 74.93 mph, plenty fast for any trail ride. Its ¼-mile time was 15.66 seconds, again pretty modest and more than a second slower than the Rush.
Also, the Sno Pro 500, which weighed in at just 551 lbs. wet, was the lightest sled in the fleet this year and only 7 lbs. heavier than our 2009 Ski-Doo E-TEC 600 was last year. The Sno Pro's light weight and peppy feel lifted it to the best 0-30 mph time of the day, just 1.86 seconds. Lesson learned? Race your buddies only in short-distance races!
Points to Ponder Gas mileage was a tad lower for all the sleds this year, possibly due to the fact that for our weeklong test period we had fresh snow - Darn!
Yamaha again was our gas mileage champ, posting 15.7 mpg from the Vector LTX GT's fuel-injected 4-stroke. Last year the pre-production short-track Vector GT was tops with 16.80 mpg. Second was Cat's mighty 4-stroke turbo, checking in at 14.2 mpg while the other sleds were all closely bracketed between 13.4 and 12.4 mpg. We'll see if that changes much after a full season.
As mentioned earlier, the Sno Pro 500 won the wet weight war at 551 lbs., but the Rush is close on its tail at 564. Although we weren't able to get a reading on the Z1 Turbo Sno Pro model we tested due to the timing of its arrival, we're sure the Cat isn't much, if any lighter, than last year's base Z1 Turbo, which tipped the scale at a big 723 lbs.