boondockers

What a difference a couple of seasons has made in the "boondocker" category of performance sleds. Up until Ski-Doo introduced its Renegade, Polaris owned this niche. Heck, just prior to the advent of the Renegade, it was rumored that Polaris gave serious consideration to dumping its SKS model because they felt the market wasn't big enough and they wanted to concentrate on the success of their longer tracked, deep powder mountain sleds.

Apparently Ski-Doo marketing types saw something in their market research that Polaris chose to ignore. Sales in the "flatlands" of the Midwest indicated that snowmobilers were purchasing powder performance sleds or adding long track kits to short track performance sleds to give them the ability to venture off trail and bust through ungroomed areas. The question became: Why were paddle tracked sleds being sold to snowmobilers in the Midwest? The answer was to create a new Ski-Doo that had the performance of an MXZ with the flotation and powder ability of a mountain sled.

But because off-trail snow conditions in the Midwest aren't as demanding as those in the mountains, Ski-Doo figured that building a version of Polaris' SKS would be the best way to go. Enter the long-tracked MXZ, er, the Renegade.

Heading into the new season, you'll see that not only did Ski-Doo correctly identify a hot market niche, but also that Polaris reassessed its SKS entirely. For a market niche that was headed nowhere just a few seasons ago, this boondocker class has gotten very popular. Yamaha stretched its RX-1 into a nicely outfitted Warrior version. Cat extended its line with Firecat-based EXT models. The boondocker class is very much alive and kicking snow on- and off-trail.