Originally Posted by
Wapow
Good suggestions. You have to move fast for the scratchers to work, and newbs generally can't go fast (understandably, sledding is NOT intuitive or easy). The scratchers on the new Doo G4s work a lot better than old school style. Add a pair of those to what you currently have, if you can afford it. And if you have a tunnel rack, you can pack snow in it. The tunnel has a cooler in it that circulates the coolant from the engine. Scratchers spray snow at the tunnel, which cools the engine. They also put snow in your skid. Snow is the lubricant for the track and when you are on hardpack, the friction of the track rotating without snow exacerbates the engine overheating. As you get better at riding you will figure out how to "mine" snow off the side of the trail (hint: you gotta spin the track in patches of loose snow, which requires being comfortable using all the power) to build a "plug"of snow and ice in the tunnel that will keep everything cool on the way up to the good snow. I took a newb out last weekend and there was spring like refrozen conditions at the snowpark. I had no problem keeping the sleds cool while he was struggling. I generally trade back and forth between sleds in those conditions to keep everything cool and moving forward. You won't have any issue in pow.