22/23 cross country thread

[AK440]

1 hour ago, Crnr2Crnr said:

do you want to purchase a used one?

wait until the season is over... 

no, I don’t want a shit box used one, I want a brand new one. You said it was so easy to get a brand new Polaris race sled. I think you are full of shit. If it was easy to get one, then everyone would have bought one last year and this year but guess what? They were very limited and unavailable unless you were a racer and got accepted into the stupid program. 

[racinfarmer]

Race a 650 in the trail class for a season to show you are committed to racing and you'll get one the next year.  

[Crnr2Crnr]

53 minutes ago, AK440 said:

no, I don’t want a shit box used one, I want a brand new one. You said it was so easy to get a brand new Polaris race sled. I think you are full of shit. If it was easy to get one, then everyone would have bought one last year and this year but guess what? They were very limited and unavailable unless you were a racer and got accepted into the stupid program. 

do you really?  if you really did... you could buy one. 

for 2023 Cat sold the RXC XC Sled to anyone who wanted to order one, BRP offered their race sled right on their website... but Polaris requires a form.  you do realize they have to make and sell enough of each to be eligible to actually be raced by ISR rules don't you?  So, no... to get a Polaris Cross Country it's not as easy as the other two mentioned but it's not very difficult.

how'd these guys get one to trail ride?  they don't race XC do they? 

 

how'd a guy I know buy a brand new Polaris 600R SX sled when he doesn't race MIRA Enduro or SX ?

[Palu49]

15 hours ago, AK440 said:

I think you are not understanding what I’m saying. If someone wants to get into racing they are now stuck having to buy a used sled which is difficult to finance. There are a lot more people who would be mildly interested in racing to use the sled they already own which if it’s a Polaris, you can’t race. It’s only going to take a couple years for whatever used sleds are available to become obsolete. I don’t see Polaris dropping the 650 to come back out with a 600. 

 

Most guys are not serious. The majority who try it out find out it’s too much work and a huge financial drain. These guys go do something else. By Polaris not offering a new consumer sled that guys can race will, with time, reduce the number of people getting into that type of racing. 
 

They will either need to change the 600cc rule or keep dwindling away in entries. 

I’m getting into it this year with the addition of an ISR sanctioned XC series back to my area. I simply sold my 22 RR and bought a few year old RXC that I’ve completely gone through to get it ready. It was a decent financial toilet bowl to get everything tip top shape and ready to race but not terrible doing it all myself and part of that is I didn’t really look at the sled when I bought it because it was a “good deal” through a friend of a friend, so my fault. I’m ordering a new RXC next year either way so if I do decently well and want to stick with it I can apply for the cat race program since it is an ISR sanctioned series. I, like racinfarmer said, got my feet wet trying it out in the trail classes back when a different series was around.

 

I also believe this series is allowing stock 650s to run in sport 600 improved class if I read the rule package correctly.

[Not greg b]

13 hours ago, AK440 said:

no, I don’t want a shit box used one, I want a brand new one. You said it was so easy to get a brand new Polaris race sled. I think you are full of shit. If it was easy to get one, then everyone would have bought one last year and this year but guess what? They were very limited and unavailable unless you were a racer and got accepted into the stupid program. 

If you leave Alaska, you can find race sleds of any kind are for sale everywhere. In about a month you can order a brand spanking new xc sled of any color.

[AK440]

On 2/6/2023 at 7:55 AM, Not greg b said:

If you leave Alaska, you can find race sleds of any kind are for sale everywhere. In about a month you can order a brand spanking new xc sled of any color.

It was my understanding the race programs were pretty selective in selling sleds. A used race sled is just a time bomb waiting to go off. 

[Crnr2Crnr]

17 minutes ago, AK440 said:

It was my understanding the race programs were pretty selective in selling sleds. A used race sled is just a time bomb waiting to go off. 

so is a new one if tuned properly, especially the SX sleds.  fuel injection has helped helped though.  

[Not greg b]

4 hours ago, AK440 said:

It was my understanding the race programs were pretty selective in selling sleds. A used race sled is just a time bomb waiting to go off. 

For snocross they are. For xc no. In fact there are brand new Polaris race for sale around here. Levi lavalle dumps a shit ton of them every year that have zero miles on them 

[Not greg b]

Here is one that is hard to get. Hentges has some on market place as well. 

[racinfarmer]

19 hours ago, Not greg b said:

Here is one that is hard to get. Hentges has some on market place as well. 

From my understanding, Polaris's race program really doesn't have a PG&A budget, they just give the big names/teams extra sleds to sell.  

That is why some of the sno-x teams were hucking Cross Countries last year and XC sleds previous years.  

[Not greg b]

18 minutes ago, racinfarmer said:

From my understanding, Polaris's race program really doesn't have a PG&A budget, they just give the big names/teams extra sleds to sell.  

That is why some of the sno-x teams were hucking Cross Countries last year and XC sleds previous years.  

I guess that has been their thing for years. It seems to be working because you can find a Polaris racer easier than any of them. 

[mnstang]

I just keep seeing cross thread every time I see this 

[racinfarmer]

1 hour ago, Not greg b said:

I guess that has been their thing for years. It seems to be working because you can find a Polaris racer easier than any of them. 

I think it was the 2018 sleds, the rumor was one team ended up with 8 sleds that should have gone to XC racers and another team 5 or 6. 

There was a handful of Sport racers that didn't get a sled or second sled they were wanting that year.  

[AK440]

1 hour ago, racinfarmer said:

I think it was the 2018 sleds, the rumor was one team ended up with 8 sleds that should have gone to XC racers and another team 5 or 6. 

There was a handful of Sport racers that didn't get a sled or second sled they were wanting that year.  

See, and there you go. Their program doesn’t sell race sleds to just anyone. I think the whole idea of a race program can go and get fucked. You don’t have to buy a Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, KTM, Husquvarna or Gas Gas motocross bike through a selective program. You go to the dealer and wheel it right out the door. 
 

It sounds like Polaris meets their minimum build number by dumping the unsold race sleds onto a couple big race teams for them to sell. That’s just a retarded way to do business. Maybe Cat and Doo do the same thing? 

[Not greg b]

25 minutes ago, AK440 said:

See, and there you go. Their program doesn’t sell race sleds to just anyone. I think the whole idea of a race program can go and get fucked. You don’t have to buy a Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, KTM, Husquvarna or Gas Gas motocross bike through a selective program. You go to the dealer and wheel it right out the door. 
 

It sounds like Polaris meets their minimum build number by dumping the unsold race sleds onto a couple big race teams for them to sell. That’s just a retarded way to do business. Maybe Cat and Doo do the same thing? 

Check the box on Polaris sno check program in a month. 

[Crnr2Crnr]

7 hours ago, mnstang said:

I just keep seeing cross thread every time I see this 

I applaud this comment.

[airflite1]

6 hours ago, AK440 said:

See, and there you go. Their program doesn’t sell race sleds to just anyone. I think the whole idea of a race program can go and get fucked. You don’t have to buy a Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, KTM, Husquvarna or Gas Gas motocross bike through a selective program. You go to the dealer and wheel it right out the door. 
 

It sounds like Polaris meets their minimum build number by dumping the unsold race sleds onto a couple big race teams for them to sell. That’s just a retarded way to do business. Maybe Cat and Doo do the same thing? 

The reason Polaris does this is liability, unless it changed they used to charge the teams a minimum of $1 a sled, the higher your profile the better price you got and also affected the number of machines you were able to buy, this program goes all the way to the 80's. By teams buying the machines instead of paying them to race released Polaris of all liabilities.

[fortune46x]

8 hours ago, AK440 said:

See, and there you go. Their program doesn’t sell race sleds to just anyone. I think the whole idea of a race program can go and get fucked. You don’t have to buy a Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, KTM, Husquvarna or Gas Gas motocross bike through a selective program. You go to the dealer and wheel it right out the door. 
 

It sounds like Polaris meets their minimum build number by dumping the unsold race sleds onto a couple big race teams for them to sell. That’s just a retarded way to do business. Maybe Cat and Doo do the same thing? 

Polaris has done it for years - they give race teams XX amount of sleds (more than what they need) and the teams sell them off to finance their race programs. Its also a way of keeping uncle sam out of the equation vs paying them with a check that can be taxed as income. 

[AK440]

9 hours ago, airflite1 said:

The reason Polaris does this is liability, unless it changed they used to charge the teams a minimum of $1 a sled, the higher your profile the better price you got and also affected the number of machines you were able to buy, this program goes all the way to the 80's. By teams buying the machines instead of paying them to race released Polaris of all liabilities.

 

6 hours ago, fortune46x said:

Polaris has done it for years - they give race teams XX amount of sleds (more than what they need) and the teams sell them off to finance their race programs. Its also a way of keeping uncle sam out of the equation vs paying them with a check that can be taxed as income. 

Thanks for this, I appreciate understanding why the system works the way it does. 

[racinfarmer]

16 hours ago, AK440 said:

See, and there you go. Their program doesn’t sell race sleds to just anyone. I think the whole idea of a race program can go and get fucked. You don’t have to buy a Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Yamaha, KTM, Husquvarna or Gas Gas motocross bike through a selective program. You go to the dealer and wheel it right out the door. 
 

It sounds like Polaris meets their minimum build number by dumping the unsold race sleds onto a couple big race teams for them to sell. That’s just a retarded way to do business. Maybe Cat and Doo do the same thing? 

Until MY22, you could go to any Polaris dealer in North America and buy the exact same sleds they were selling to the racers. 

19 would have been the Indy XC 600. 

0 issues or concerns with minimum build quantity there, just odd management choices by their race program.  

Edited February 9, 2023 by racinfarmer

[AK440]

23 hours ago, racinfarmer said:

Until MY22, you could go to any Polaris dealer in North America and buy the exact same sleds they were selling to the racers. 

19 would have been the Indy XC 600. 

0 issues or concerns with minimum build quantity there, just odd management choices by their race program.  

Looks like they went back to the same race sled model they used with the IQR before USCC made the production rule. I just checked the Polaris website and they no longer offer a 600cc liquid motor. It’s only 650’s. Hopefully this helps Cat sell a few more sleds. 

[Crnr2Crnr]

On 2/9/2023 at 4:38 PM, racinfarmer said:

Until MY22, you could go to any Polaris dealer in North America and buy the exact same sleds they were selling to the racers. 

19 would have been the Indy XC 600. 

0 issues or concerns with minimum build quantity there, just odd management choices by their race program.  

the 19's were as you said, consumer sleds and required a ton of work for XC including changing the over structure.

https://www.ridex365.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2019-600-Indy-XC-Cross-Country-Terrain-Racing-set-up-sheet.pdf

20 & 21 were XCR 600 same as consumers 

https://cdn1.polaris.com/globalassets/snow/root/team-polaris/racer-resources/cross-contry/setup-information/2021-600-indy-xcr-cross-country-terrain-racing-set-up-sheet.pdf?v=89142f36

22 & 23 are Cross Country's, because XCR's in Matryx are 650's

https://cdn1.polaris.com/globalassets/snow/2023/racing-resources/cross-country/2023-indy-cross-country-600-terrain-racing-set-up-sheet-update.pdf?v=b053686b

 

I enjoy snooping around this page... https://snowmobiles.polaris.com/en-us/team-polaris/racer-resources/

[Potatodigger1]

My ‘19 XC 600 was a junior class ice racer, it has some extra tunnel and rail braces that I think were supposed to make it to the XCR the next year, but didn’t? Seem to remember people complaining about snow check info that said it was going to be there but then wasn’t? 

[Premium]

Cat has done well making a truly race ready machine for the masses in the form of the R-XC.  The only thing that purists may gripe about is the QS3s.  While awesome trail shocks, I'm sure actual racers benefit more from extreme adjust-ability offered by other shocks.

[Crnr2Crnr]

Herf is sporting the All Finish livery this weekend for the I-500... 

 

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