SCORE Journal - The Official Publication of SCORE Off-Road Racing
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1537671
SCORE JOURNAL 45 FACTORY UTV WARS - CAN-AM According to Wells, Can-Am is always tinkering with transmission tunes and he's often on the phone with them about these changes. "I think the Maverick R is the dominant car in the 2900 class for being under 1000 cc," he said. "From the dealership, it is amazing and has the most horsepower and speed. The transmission is a paddle-shifted automatic and those are the things I like about it. The turbo also gives it the boost I need to win. It's a really strong car straight from the factory. I love having this transmission, where you can drop-down a gear or two and run it to redline for speed. The body is wider than the Polaris RZR Pro R, and the Maverick R handles the terrain really well because of it." The competition in all of the SCORE UTV Classes is extremely high, and Wells acknowledges that the factory teams in the Polaris RZR have a cubic- inch advantage. But he says that only goes so far. "When you dominate a specific class like we do in SCORE Pro UTV FI, that says something about how these Maverick Rs are built to handle Baja, even up against Polaris," he said. "Can-Am is moving up the leaderboard in the SCORE Pro Stock UTV class, too, even as Polaris teams are right there fighting for position." Like many other teams in these classes, it's difficult for self-funded privateers to race against the factory teams. "But in some classes privateers are seeing more success. They want to get a win over the fully funded factory teams too. "We are getting closer and closer to the fully funded factory teams from other manufacturers," he said. "Even though Polaris swept the podium in some classes, Can-Am is making big gains." SJ JACK WRIGHT NMEDIA3