Polaris has launched the Polaris RZR Factory Racing programme with young stars Brock Heger, Cayden MacCachren, and Austin Weiland. Besides OEM support, the programme is developing the first “purpose-built race ready UTV” for off-road competition. Being the RZR Pro R line, the cars are eligible for SCORE International‘s Pro UTV Open category for production UTVs.
Heger and Weiland switch to Polaris after respectively competing for Yamaha and Can-Am. The former mainly competes in short course and is the reigning Championship Off-Road Pro Stock SxS champion, while also competing in SCORE’s Trophy Truck Spec class. With Can-Am, Weiland was one of the top drivers in SCORE International’s Pro UTV Forced Induction category, winning the class in three of four rounds in 2022 including the legendary Baja 1000, though he finished fourth in the SCORE class championship due to a retirement in San Felipe.
MacCachren is the teenaged son of off-road great Rob MacCachren, having switched from UTV racing to Trophy Trucks in 2022. He won the inaugural California 300 that year and made his SCORE driving début at the Baja 400 before running the 1000 alongside Christian Sourapas.
“Backed by nearly seventy years of innovation, Polaris is not only responsible for literally inventing the performance side-by-side category, it also has a long and storied history of winning at the highest levels of off-road racing, so it simply makes sense that we’d be driving the industry forward yet again with the first, full-fledged UTV class factory racing program,” commented Polaris Off Road Recreation vice president Reid Wilson.
“Racing is integral to everything we do, driving performance innovations that inspire the products we bring to showroom floors, ultimately pushing the industry forward and advancing the consumer side-by-side market. We’re absolutely chomping at the bit to now showcase Polaris’ engineering prowess and ingenuity through our new Polaris Factory Racing team.”
Other Polaris RZR factory drivers include Wayne and Kristen Matlock, Wes Miller, Mitch Guthrie, and Branden Sims in desert racing, while Andrew Carlson pilots one in short course. Sara Price moved to Can-Am for 2023 after a long stint with Polaris. Despite being contracted to Polaris for North American desert competition, Guthrie races an OT3 in international rally raid; his World Rally-Raid team-mate Seth Quintero was also a Polaris driver before switching to Can-Am.
Craig Scanlon and Travis Clarke will oversee the programme as team principals via their company Scanlon Clarke Industries. Other staff members include Ryan Thomas (general manager), Adam Arsenault (operations director), and Johnny Nelson (crew chief). The team operates out of the shop formerly owned by Andy McMillin until he ended his full-time driving career after 2022.
“Really excited for my friends who are apart of this program,” wrote McMillin on social media. “Glad my old shop is in great hands with friend @tcclarkeee (Clarke) and also glad a few of my employees and volunteers are apart of this awesome program! Not too shabby of a driver lineup as well.”
