Impressions
Well I put 31 miles on the new track... so far I like it overall. Slow speed traction and climbing was impressive, particularly on the harder, more frozen snow. Yesterday's conditions were rather strange, trenching in about 4-6" with a really slick, almost snot-like (for lack of a better word) top layer. The consensus was that ANY track was going to spin on this stuff, lol.
Compared to the 5.1, the Competition track did hook up better at all speeds, though the extra weight cost me a bit of track acceleration. Overall track speed was close to what I had with the 5.1, though I wasn't pulling full RPM (the one problem I have been battling with this sled) Averaging 8050-8150 RPM I was pulling 35-38MPH peak and under heavy load situations such as turning up the hill mid way from a sidehill or putting my way up the bottom half and then nailing the throttle I was only getting about 30-32MPH, with track speed increasing from there (again, a few hundred RPM low too). I felt I was able to 'crawl' up hills with more confidence than before, and in a couple unexpected situations where I had to completely stop in the tight trees while pointed uphill, I was able to takeoff without much problem... I am uncertain if the 5.1 would have recovered as easily.
I ran into a rider with a stock 2011 Assault and he agreed that the snow we were riding in was not ideal for the Competition track to really shine in.
The only problem I ran into was that I was ratcheting under heavy or shock load situations... I thought I had the track tight enough but apparently not... I will tighten it up a bit before going out again... I am anticipating 1 more ride for the year... not sure if there will be enough ride-able snow left after that or not.
I can tell that I would have loved this track earlier this spring when we had hard, frozen snow. In the morning when things were more setup, it really shined.