Lukes XP 800R Review

After an entire summer of talking smack, these two hotrods finally jumped into the ring. The ring was my farm with 3+ inches of snow on mowed fields. The XP 800R was unstudded and had little traction out of the hole. The 192 studs in my Apex GT were a HUGE advantage out of the hole. The action from a 20mph running start was dead even. Due to lack of space, 80mph is about all we could race to. The "max speed" indicator on the Doo showed 112mph, the 800 was really spinning. (I just heard from a spy at Hardcore Sledder that all Doo's leave the factory with 112mph set as high speed. Maybe he wasn't spinning that bad after all.) Luke, who owns the 800R, plans on studding soon. For Lukes sake, I'm hoping the 800R keeps on pulling hard after 80mph because my Apex gets stronger as speed and distance grow. For my sake I hope that the "magic" burn-in chip on the Doo doesn't add too much power. Luke and his 800R are heading up to the UP until the beginning of January. Once he studs up, we'll really run them and you'll hear about it. BTW just to get the upper hand, I'm ordering a Power Commander with Ignition Module from Ulmer Racing in case his sled gets real fast. Check back soon.

As you can see in the above pic, Ski Doo cut weight the old fashioned way, they removed as much metal as possible. Luke added the yellow floorboard stiffeners after hearing of a supposed weakness. I rode this sled and it never felt weak, it felt much lighter than my Ape but only at lower speeds. At higher speeds during maxium accelleration the Apex felt smoother, Luke said that the big Yamaha would just hunker down and get smoother as the speed increased. In fairness to the 800R, its ride was much like an '06 Rev 800 that I've had some seat time on and really enjoyed.

Sled was run with stock suspension settings, it was not a crazy wheelie machine like we've all seen in videos. When I rode it, I couldn't get the skis more than a foot off of the ground without the help of a bump. This is good news since wheelies are very counterproductive when it comes to hauling ass. I imagine that with a little skid adjustment, the skiis could be sky-high at will.

The 800R is very light, it is so light that even my bad backed 37 year old body could pick up the rear end. I wouldn't try to pick up the rear of the Apex unless one of my children were underneath it. I can't wait for Yamaha's answer to this bare bones lightweight rocket. I can imagine a 450 pound 165 horse missile 2009 Apex GT Lw (Lightweight). Ripping around the farm there was more vibration and bumpiness than on my big GT. If I were to compare these two sleds to bikes, the Apex GT would be a Yamaha R1 and the 800R would be a Honda CR500. Both vehicles are stupid fast in their own ways and there is nothing wrong with either vehicle. In a perfect, I just won the lottery, world, I'd have both sleds. I'd use the Apex on the long fast PA roads near my house and the 800R when I head on up to the tighter bumpier trails of western NY.

The Ski Doo XP 800R is the first sled I've been excited about since the '06 Yamaha Apex came out. Why am I excited? I'm excited because a company finally used the old "build it light and wind it tight" rule when building a sled. Doo chopped 10% of the weight off of this thing and put a strong 150 horse 800 cc 2-stroke twin. Sure the entire sled had to be Ginsued to get the weight down but can you blame them?. Ski-Doo ended up with the lightest performance sled the worlds ever seen.

I have to add that the XP 800R is really good looking in person. All of the gutting looks bitchen, everywhere you look there are holes. The frame mounting points of the lower a-arms is totally skeletonized. Will all of this weight reduction hurt reliability? Who knows? If anyone can beat a sled to death it will be Luke. Luke got 250 pounds and an aggressive riding style that will be the true test of the 800R's reliability. If I wasn't totally in love with my GT's motor, I have one of these for sure. I'm saying a little prayer to Yamaha to build a hot sled like this one, with the Genesis motor in it.

The controls are typical cheesy non-Yamaha parts. The gauge pod is good looking and the Max Speed and Altimeter are excellent but wow, did you have to go so cheap on the handlebar switchgear? C'mon Doo, I've seen sweeter controls on 15 year old snowblowers. Ya ya ya, I know they're light weight, but they're ugly and they feel terrible.