Arctic Cat releases two new 2015 race sleds

Snow Goer magazine, a sister publication to Powersports Business, was on hand at Arctic Cat’s snowmobile unveil Saturday at Haydays.

The following is an excerpt from Snow Goer editor John Prusak’s report from SnowGoer.com. To read more about the sleds, click here.

Arctic Cat has made a habit of unveiling a race sled and maybe one other surprise consumer sled or two at the annual Haydays Grass Drags & Swap Meet. This year, they followed suit, although the focus was primarily on racing… for now. Trail riders should pay attention, however: There could be cues to the future here.

In front of a huge crowd at 1 p.m. on Sept. 6, Cat officials pulled back the wraps on two new race sleds: an updated ZR 6000 R SX race sled targeted at snocross racing and an all-new ZR 6000 R XC aimed at cross-country racing in general and the I-500 cross-country race specifically.

There were some minor updates to the snocross sled, including but not limited to new Fox FLOAT Evol RC shocks and a new track, and the sled kept its carbureted 599cc Suzuki powerplant, race chassis and C&A Pro skis, and a shout out was given at the event to the team’s snocross superstar Tucker Hibbert. But the star of this program was the new cross-country machine, which incorporates Arctic Cat’s ProCross chassis and self-built engine and adds a bunch of features targeted at the rigors of cross-country racing.

This will be the first race sled in the previously consumer-only chassis, and when talking about the revised suspension geometry, one Arctic Cat officials said, “that’s only on the race version of the ProCross chassis, for now.” Hmmmm.