It’s pretty clear Arctic Cat has taken the spotlight the past six months with the impending launch of its all new C-TEC 2 858 stroker SDI 2-stroke twin. The engine is, of course, destined to propel AC’s very interesting and innovative CATALYST chassis in three track lengths.
Knowing these details we need to spend time drilling down on the other OEM’s and their potential to introduce something interesting in the coming season. Yeah, we’re talking limited build sleds.
Let’s have a look at Ski-Doo. Everyone knows Ski-Doo doesn’t let anyone mow its grass. This being a true statement we look for at least one – but up to three possibilities.
First: A no brainer. With the turbo trail 2 stroke genre capturing so much interest and sales success in such a short time, we look for Ski-Doo to match Polaris intro of the BOOST Assault for the 2025 model year.
This makes so much sense we have to think Ski-Doo will deliver a Backcountry X-RS 850 Turbo sometime this winter to go head to head with Polaris. Like we said – this just makes sense.
Second. We’ve beat this drum for at least two years. A Rotax 650 2-stroke to counter Polaris’s 650 Patriot engine used in myriad sled models. Here’s the beef. It’s not like the Rotax 600 in use right now is long-in-the-tooth. It isn’t.
However, the Polaris 650 does produce more HP than the Rotax 600 and in this biz we all know it’s all about who has the most – of everything. What’s the statistical odds this will come true? We’d say between sixty and seventy percent.
Third. This one might be a stretch, however, we think Ski-Doo may have another variant of its RAS-X trail independent front suspension. Why? We’ve been harping for a long time about how good the Polaris MATRYX IFS works in comparison to just about everything in the biz.
Would Ski-Doo tweak RAS-X this early in the Gen-5’s life cycle? Statistical odds on this happening would only be between twenty and thirty percent.
