I know a few rally leagues have started to allow UTV's. Has anybody raced in a stage rally? Heading up with Rhys Millen, Stephan Verdier, and James Hill from IMG to the The Frazier Mountain Rally to see how UTV's will stack up. Rhys is entering his desert race car with a different ride height, suspension, and tire and wheel package. Here is Stephan Verdier's Polaris RZR: http://www.fraziermountainrally.com/ Enter your UTV or come out and spectate!
Forgot to mention our good friend Chrissie Beavis will Rhys's co-driver. She has a ton of experience and has ridden and raced with some of the best.
Thanks for the intro Mad media, this will be my first stage rally race and am super excited to be involved, Erica sacks will be handling my co-driving duties in our production 1000 car with a short course setup. Can't wait to see some new terrain and cars setup for this new discipline! -James Hill
I'm really looking forward to see how this turns out. Frazier Mtn is a pretty twisty rally with long climbs and downhills on a road that gets reused several times. In pretty much every respect of what you need from a rally car at Frazier UTVs have them beat. More grip to weight ratio to corner faster, quicker acceleration than most rally cars, better braking, higher tolerance to a chewed up road after several runs across the same terrain, potentially better visibility out of the vehicle than in a car...and that's just the start of my list.. Some of the faster rallies may reward traditional rally cars given the sustained high speeds but I'm betting on UTVs here. Check it out from a view from the fastest 2wd car last year. MJ
Good to see you on the underground MJ, is there anyone else with rally background on the forum? Definitely interested in people's wheel and tire combos and what may be good for this type of racing. I currently use an arisun all terrain and am looking at groove styling..
I am assuming a less aggressive tread like a traditional rally style tire. Smaller tire size as well.
It'll be interesting to see, on smooth and curvy stages, I think UTVs would have a hard time placing near the rally cars, but for stages like any of Desert Storm and Seed 9 that are super rough, I think they could come out as some of the fastest cars on stage. Nonetheless it would be fun as a hell to rally a UTV.
Rhys brought up something really interesting yesterday, once you are passed a certain level of horsepower you are just spinning wheels you not really going faster. So really it's about the magical horsepower to weight ratio and how your four wheel drive performs.
Watching the guys in Europe in UTV rally through an incar camera is pretty amazing I love watching how important the navigator is. I could really see utv rally racing in the U.S. blow up.
Rhys and I are super exited to see how competitive our RZRs will be. We did some testing and time comparison on some of Gorman rally stage and we were shocked how fast we were compare to the rally cars. The Rzr is the perfect size for the technical stages of SoCal. Our top speed is our weak point but acceleration (0-60) and braking is our advantage because of the light weight. We are still figuring out what tires to use. We believe that rally could be an other motorsport where UTV could be really successful and affordable.
I am sure UTV's will evolve to be faster on the top end. The versatility of the platform is pretty rad. We need to go tackle some pavement after this. I know James has done some ripping over at the Apex track.
Check out Rhys UTV set up for rally. Lowered ride height by four inches, 30" tensors tires shaved down and siped, custom duct to help keep belt cool, anything not needed out of the car.
Check out Rhys's rally tire set up for the Frazier Mountain Rally. 30" tensors tires shaved down and siped.
Stephane Verdier just won the Frazier Mountain Rally overall! Are we looking at the evolution of rally racing as we know it? Top 4 spots were UTV's! Full story, photos, and video coming! #gofast #rhysmillen #stephanverdier #methodracewheels #tensortires #rallyracing #fraziermountainrally #utvunderground
