We’re going to stick with our viewpoint, but deliver a caveat. Despite denials from the yellow faithful, we are equally as adamant, Ski-Doo, in the past decade or so, has not delivered number one rated handling prowess.

A giant shift occurred in model year 2025 with a complete redesign of the front steering and suspension with the new RAS RX front end.

By raising the sled’s roll center and keeping its center of gravity low, the engineers have allowed the chassis to have less leverage on the skis, to corner flatter and reduce inside ski lift when cornering at speed. The changes have also made the turning arc of the sled more linear and predictable to steering inputs over rough terrain.

Roll Center refers to the imaginary point at the front of a snowmobile’s chassis (between the skis) where the inputs from the skis and suspension intersect as the sled cycles through its suspension movement or steers through corners. If it’s too low, you get ski-lift, body roll and imprecise handling.

Ski-Doo raised the roll center on RAS RX adding completely new castings that have lengthened the distance between the A-arm attachment points and the distance between the lower A-arm and the ski saddle. This longer spindle raises the front of the sled slightly and has much to do with raising the roll center.

Besides the longer spindle, the ski’s pivot bolt has been moved backward a bit resulting in a steeper steering angle. This makes the sled much “quicker steering” or responsive to the driver’s feeding of input into the handlebars.

Other changes to the swaybar, shock angles and the addition of new curved upper and lower wishbones helps the RAS-RX deal with bumps better and particularly, the curved A-arms help deliver increased useable travel.

Does all this work and actually make a tangible difference? You bet it does. Our test riders are sold on RAS RX and unanimously, very impressed.

Then in TEST RIDE AJ evaluates the deep snow performance and trail-thrashing proficiency of the 2024 Ski-Doo Backcountry X-RS 146 featuring the ROTAX 850 E-TEC engine.

Remember the 2007 MX-Z XRS? We do and so does our orthodontist. That attempt at delivering an oh-so-close-to-a-real-racer left us with loose fillings and a sizable chiropractic bills.

Ski-Doo was well aware of how poorly the ‘07 XRS rode after being inundated with agonizing cries from the consumer and for MY 10 the XRS concept returns to the lightweight XP platform with tons of experience.

The new XP XRS features the sweetest Kayaba dampers ever mounted on a production sled – including gloves-on adjustable clickers. The shocks have both high and low speed damping adjustments on the compression side and a rebound clicker.

The entire XRS package drips with racer inspiration however, the calibration is diametrically opposite to the XP 600 RS it so accurately mirrors. This is great news for the wannabe crowd with a stock spring and valving package we’ve had the privilege of testing ourselves.

The sled can be clicked considerably softer for less aggressive lightweights and bumped up to what we’d consider serious ditch damping by simply twisting the red knobs on the front IFS shocks and the rear arm skid shock.

There’s a wide range of appeal here, but get this straight – even if you click to full-on, super-duper hard the XP XRS never approaches the level of stiffness displayed by the much maligned MY 07 XRS.

So, is this a credible trail sled? Yes, yes and yes. There’s little doubt the new XRS in 600 E-TEC trim (our favorite) or in Power-Tek 800 tune (for now) is a home run.

The inherent balance in this chassis is superb. It handles with telepathic accuracy carving lines through twisty trails like a Veg-O-Matic slicing spuds on Julienne.

Those who belly up to the sales desk for a copy are going to get as much racer as anyone is offering this year.