What kind of winter was that? If we’ve heard that sentence once, we’ve heard it way too many times this year. Unfortunately, we’ve had to push back a ton of story ideas we had lined up for this snow season as a result of the snow conditions; but here’s some good news. There’s been just enough to get out on the trails to get some in-season impressions of our 2024 fleet that we can pass along to you.
I know we talked a lot about VR1 Patriot BOOST last season but what we weren’t prepared for was the material changes Polaris has made to the ride and acceleration of this 2-stroke, factory turbo trail sled.
Last year the Boost laid down an almost vicious response to throttle inputs over 6000 RPM. The sled would transition from essentially no boost to a full-on 3 PSI gulp of O2 in a spread of less than 500 RPM.
The sled was fun to take into the boost zone, but required deliberate concentration to modulate and more importantly to find traction. This response came across as somewhat unrefined, but nevertheless, impressive.
The new MY24 VR1 BOOST has received a serious re-mapping, netting a dramatically altered response to throttle inputs across the entire RPM range, essentially from engagement at 4000-4500 RPM to full shift at 8250 RPM.
According to Polaris, its team did a significant amount of tweaking to the main injectors and even more work was done to the boost port injector.
Surprisingly there was little clutch calibration tweaking, but what you end up with is a silky-smooth transition from no boost to full boost blended in an overwhelmingly formidable surge which will (I’m not kidding here) require you to move up on the seat and roll your wrists around the grips when you hammer the throttle wide open. This recalibration of the fuel delivery process is quite amazing.
We said this last year and we’ll say it again here because repetition is the law of emphasis: Buy and install enough traction studs to establish a three stud per grouser pattern with two studs in every middle belt and alternating one stud per outside belt. This is the minimum we would recommend.
If you bought and paid for a VR1 BOOST then you’re going to need traction studs to have a decent chance at getting hooked up on long pulls down Kevlar Lake.
It’s good news all around with the 2024 Polaris Patriot BOOST Indy VR1 137 and one rip may leave you struggling to erase the biggest smile you’ve produced all winter.
