Stuff We Learned While Riding Snowmobiles Instead of Sitting at Our Desks
By: Motorhead Mark Lester
The MX-Z XRS is a street fighting snowmobile. If it were human it would hide out in dark allies and jump on unsuspecting pedestrians, stealing their wallets and roughing them up.
There’s no way nice way to describe a sled like this. It is simply the most drop dead serious wannabe racer ever produced. Seems funny to us how Ski-Doo sold Blair Morgan, Tony Haikonnen and Mike Houle ‘Specials’ – nothing more than foo-foo signature models. Then, when the real thing comes along it doesn’t get an autograph?
Someone around here commented that that 138 Powertech mill is making a different 138 horses than anything we’ve ridden before – way faster.
Anyway, this is a no-disappointment sled that practically leaps out of its lightweight hood, carves white top like a carbide tipped chop saw and begs to be lifted off anything with a 30 degree face. Oh, did I say we like it?
As for the Ski-Doo MX-ZX Renegade 600 SDI, this 2007 edition of the original crossover sled gets oh-so-close to perfection with it’s silky, smokeless Semi-Direct Injection mill and a footprint big enough to chase down a 121 and devour it in deep snow.
There’s something so right with the 16 x 136-inch Renegade. It has to do with not feeling a sneaker that big outback. It’s been quite a run at the top for the Renegade 600 SDI but we think there’s bad news in our PR fleet.
Our 600 Clean Fire Polaris IQ can literally eat this well behaved Rotax for dinner in a drag race. If Polaris delivers what we think it should this winter – a limited build 136” IQ crossover (NO – not a Switchback!) Ski-Doo will be forced to go back to the horsepower well.
One more note. There’s only one sled capable of challenging the fuel economy of the 600 SDI in the 120 HP class – that’s Yamaha’s Vector 1000. The 600 SDI for 2007 is a genuine 20 plus MPG ride.
