UTV BEATS RALLY CARS!

At the recent 2017 Frazier Mountain Rally, the top four fastest times were UTVs, beating out the Subarus, Mitsubishis and VW GTIs that normally win these events. This rally course, 60 miles north of Los Angeles, was typical of most in that it was on flat dirt roads. The largest number of entries were the 4-wheel-drive, high-horsepower cars like the Subaru WRX. These car drivers were shocked when the times came in and they saw that RZRs and YXZs were clocked faster than them.

Stephan Verdier (219) took first in his RZR Turbo, Rhys Millen took second in his RZR Turbo, James Hill took third in his RZR XP1000, followed by Cain Smead in a Yamaha YXZ1000R. There were 5 UTVs entered with one not finishing. The top non-UTV car finished 5th with the rest behind him.

Rally racing is big in Europe and they run mostly on tight and twisty paved back roads. In the USA it’s harder to close off normally traveled paved roads for a rally, so here they tend to use dirt roads more. This makes a good type of motorsport for UTV owners to get in to. In fact, we can see some of the car guys trading in their expensive rally cars for more affordable UTVs.