SCORE Journal

SCORE-Journal-October-2021

SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing

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WELLS TAKES THE LEAD Kaden Wells Takes The SCORE Pro UTV NA Win At The SCORE BaJa 400 By Mike Vieria Photos by Get Some Photo Kaden Wells notched another victory in the Pro UTV Normally Aspirated class in the 2nd SCORE Baja 400 Presented by VP Racing Fuels. With this win, he and his Polaris RZR XP1000 extended his lead in points toward the 2021 Championship. Adding to the SCORE Baja 500 win in June, Wells looks to repeat his success of 2019, after narrowly missing the championship in 2020 to Kristen Matlock. At this race, Wells was third off the line and moved into the lead around race mile 12. He then managed to hold that position through the rest of the race. In addition, luck was on his side, as he was able to escape any mechanical difficulties such as flat tires, or other problems, as he made his way through the course. “I think that actually was the cleanest race I’ve ever had,” said Wells. Driving solo in one of his older RZRs (2016 model), Wells says he kept an easy pace for about the first sixty-five miles, then stepped things up to move out to approximately a twenty-minute lead. “We had a clean race all the way up through Mike’s Sky Ranch, but at about race mile 205, we hit the two bottlenecks and everyone was stuck. Our lead gap was gone after that,” he says. “Everyone was stuck, so there was no real way around it. Once it opened up again, we kept our pace and ran a really solid race to get our gap back again. Then we just took it to the finish.” Actually, the gap he opened after the delays gave him a finish of more than an hour ahead of the second in class vehicle. Clearly he was really airing it out in the second half. Overall, Wells made easy work of the course, but there were a couple of spots that challenged him a bit. “Near Ojos Negros, there was a tight section right after we got off the highway, and a couple of the ruts were really deep through the turns,” he says. “I wasn’t running long-travel suspension, and the ruts pretty much almost tipped the car over going through it.” Of some of the newer sections of the course, Wells says, “I liked the tighter sections. I thought it was a really fun course.” Of his SCORE Baja 400 win and success so far this season, Wells says, “I’d just like to thank Polaris, Method Race Wheels, Tensor Tires, Union Graphic Company, everyone that helps in the pit crew, and my family.” Wells and his team are now looking forward to the season’s points championship. “I think we had about a three-point lead before the race, and now we have a little bigger one,” he said. “I’ve got to keep it together for the SCORE Baja 1000.” In the upcoming race in November, he plans to drive the four-seat Polaris, rather than the two-seater he used for the SCORE Baja 500 and SCORE Baja 400 races. “We actually had prepped the four-seater for the SCORE San Felipe 250, but ended up switching to the two-seater, so basically the car has been waiting for the SCORE Baja 1000 all year,” says Wells. “We’ve just got to do a couple of tests on it, and I think we’re ready to go.”Check out Kaden Well’s stats on SCORE Fan Pages

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