SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1516194
FACTORY RACING By Dan Sanchez Editor, SCORE Journal One of the great things I’ve been able to see happen in SCORE is the return of factory racing programs. While Ford, the Official Truck and SUV of SCORE International has launched several of its vehicles over the past several years, it wasn’t until Polaris set out to establish itself with a factory racing team. One can’t help but recall the great efforts made by the truck industry when Ford had the Rough Riders, Toyota had PPI and Ivan Stewart, and other factory teams that utilized what they learned from Baja racing and made their vehicles better. Today it’s the Polaris Factory team with SCI Motorsports heading a new resurgence of this. Just like in the past, where these teams were made up of off-road and truck industry people, as well as racers, the SCI Polaris factory team has done the same with veteran racers and off-road industry veterans such as Craig Scanlon, Travis Clark heading the SCI team. And ironically having Cayden MacCachren, son of Ford Rough Rider and legendary racer Rob MacCachren on their team. Along with Brock Heger, and Maxx Eddy who are also veterans of off-road racing, as well as team manager Ryan Thomas who has a long history of being in the off-road industry. Seeing factory teams like this happening again brings an important spotlight back onto SCORE and Baja racing. It showcases the sport’s inherent ability to strengthen vehicle designs and capabilities and allows a growing number of off-road fans the ability to drive the same vehicles that win SCORE races. It’s an exciting time for SCORE to begin its 51st year and hopefully, more factory teams will begin to emerge in other classes again and keep Baja off-road racing ongoing for a long time to come.