The axys 3" track sucked in light CO pow for me in early season no base. I put a 3" powerclaw on it and it helped deep snow performance a ton. I have a lot of miles on both sleds. I have about $11K in mods on my axys, and about $2K in mods in my Cat. I still like my Mountain Cat better. It just beats me up less throughout the day, even with stock shocks on the MC, whereas my Axys had both Zbroz and now Burandt fox shocks all around on it. If you put gripper skis, increase steering, a can, and some boards on the Mountain Cat, there is nothing the sled won't do. And I actually prefer it in Technical terrain over my axys. Both are great sleds and you can't really go wrong with either. I've blown engines on both sleds as well, so not like one engine is that much more reliable than the other. The low rpm and smooth engagement is really nice on the Cat though. If I were to buy an axys again I'd go with the 2.6 and belt drive over the 3" and chaincase. The 3" stock poo track got pretty chewed up within 500 miles.
