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2013 600-Class Shootout

For flatland trail riders who spend their time on twisting trails or along ditchlines, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Yes, bigger displacement machines have stolen most of the headlines in recent years, but those sleds seem to show best on big, wide trails where their top-end capabilities are allowed to shine.

But the class formerly known as the “600 Performance Specials” is different. Named after the two-stroke middleweight class that started to rule in the middle 1990s, it’s long featured sleds that have a great power-to-weight ratio and a powerband that is fun for experienced riders who like to truly wring out a machine, but controllable enough that they might trust their less-experienced teenage children with it the next day.

The class name has changed with the times, as two of the four brands don’t even make two-stroke 600s anymore — Cat answers the call for these riders with its 1100-class, normally aspirated four-stroke twin, while Yamaha enters its 1049cc triple.

We expected there to be differing experiences between the two- and four-strokes during our test at the 2013 Rode Reports, but the differences run deeper than that, as each machine has its own personality and may appeal to different riders within the larger Middleweight Performance class.


Click the sleds below to see how they fared in the shootout!

Arctic Cat ProCross F 1100 Sno Pro

Yamaha FX Nytro RTX

Ski-Doo MX Z X E-TEC 600 H.O.

Polaris 600 Rush Pro-R

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