Project GNCC Championship
- Updated: February 28, 2014
The last thing on my odds and ends apparel list is a good set of goggles with roll offs, not just tear offs. You need the best vision possible for GNCC racing, especially when trying to squeeze a 64 inch UTV between tight trees while being roosted by the machine ahead of you. I have two pair of Scott Hustle Goggles both with Scott’s Works Roll off kit, which also allows me to pin a few tear-offs over the roll offs. I’ve yet to experience a better goggle setup than this.
Even though the race is scored with a transponder that you either buy or rent at registration, you probably should put some numbers on the machine. Plus you never know when the scoring malfunctions and they need to visually score you. I went with a set of cheap black number-plates and white numbers that I found on Amazon.com and just zip tied them to the rear cage. I think it looks fine and I saved over a hundred dollars, you can put that savings in the gas tank. While I’m thinking of zip ties, I should mention that I lost the XP’s hood while trailering the machine to South Carolina so I purchased an affordable Maier hood from Mud Motorsports and zip tied it down. If you want a better method to locking down the hood look to Desert Molding Concepts, they have a really nice XP Hood Strap kit.
I used this little trick to minimize the time it takes to get in and out of reverse.
At round one I got wedged into a tree and had a hard time finding reverse. It took way longer than it should have to get out of that small predicament. I wasn’t about to let that happen again, so I drilled a hole through the plastic shift cover, then at the line when I put the machine into Hi, which is all the way back on the shifter, I stuck a bolt through the hole. With this you can shove the shifter all the way forward until it hits the bolt for reverse. You’ll need two gears for GNCC racing; Hi and Reverse, Reverse is a quick thrust forward on the shifter and Forward is a quick slam all the way back, you’ll never need Low, Neutral or Park.
Rounding out the odds and ends needed to race competitively in the Stock Novice class in the GNCC series is good maintenance. You’ll want to change the oil and differential fluid, especially the front, it gets very contaminated. I ended up buying new ball joints, wheel bearings, two axles and a tie rod from Mud Motorsports and Concord Motorsports in Concord, Ohio, which is also where I got the machine. These are the only replacement parts I used all year, pretty impressive.
I teamed up with John Howard and his brother Seth (our mechanic) for the final round of the UTV Rally Raid Series in Tennessee. We bolted on a Lazer Star 40″ LED light bar and raced the stock machine to second overall of 34 entries.
26th Overall for #260
I had a blast racing the #260 “Team ATV Scene” Polaris, (it would have been called Team UTV Scene but to tell the truth, I didn’t plan to separate the two sites this soon). At season’s end I advanced the stocker to appropriately enough secure the 26th overall spot for the year. Then at year’s end we entered the machine in the last two UTV Rally Raid events. Interestingly enough, myself and teammate John Howard finished with 2nd overall in Tennessee and I solo-ran the final Rally Raid in Alabama finishing 6th overall. These respectable results had a lot to do with the machine and components chosen.
I hope you’ve learned more about the amazing XP 900 LE and the must-have bolt-ons that worked so well on mine. If you’re like me you want to race the best machine possible in the best series possible. For me that’s the Polaris RZR XP 900 LE and the Grand National Cross Country Series.
Here I am accepting my Championship at the GNCC Awards Banquet. After thanking Polaris for such an incredible machine I thanked Dave Coombs Sr. for his many visions, one being the GNCC Series.
UTV Scene will be featuring much more GNCC UTV racing information in the future, including an in-depth do’s and don’ts feature on racing a UTV in the GNCC series, so be sure to bookmark the site, Like us, Follow us and become a UTV Scene forum member, myself and everyone on on the UTV Scene team are all about helping you make the best choices possible to enjoy the sport to the fullest.
Learn more about the Polaris RZR XP 900 LE at polaris.com
Learn more about what the GNCC Series at gnccracing.com
