Polaris Racing blitzes competition and sets a new benchmark at Rally Australia. Not one, but two RZR’s annihilate all classes of vehicles in Super Special Stage
Polaris Racing took the Rally Australia side x side title with rally veterans Cody Crocker and co-driver Greg Foletta taking first place for all three heats and ultimately the overall win in Coffs Harbour NSW on the weekend.
Rally Australia plays host to both the NSW round of the ARC and the Australian round of the WRC. The WRC is a real draw card for crowds with the international teams sparing no expense with their cars, teams and service set ups. For the side x side competitors there is a real buzz getting to race on the same stages as the best teams in the world.
Over the weekend the Polaris Racing team comprehensively held off all rivals as they blitzed the thirteen stages covering 189.93 competitive kilometres. Polaris also took out third place with some great driving feats from racers Swindale and Piper.
What can only be described as an outrageous achievement two stock RZR’s (with required safety features) each worth approximately $40k posted the two fastest times out of all classes of vehicles on the Super Special Stage at Rally Australia on the Friday night of the Rally. Polaris RZR’s placed first and second respectively and beat Rally Veteran Neal Bates who placed fourth overall in his Toyota Celica.
Cody Crocker and Greg Foletta backed up Friday night’s performance again on Saturday night placing first overall with the fastest time out of all competitors. The Super Special Stage consisted of a 1.56km Stage in the town centre of Coffs Harbour with the side x side class yet again proving to the Rally community and thousands of spectators that they won’t accept looking at the rear ends of $200,000+ Rally Cars.
“Our RZR XP 1000 performed smooth and strong over the 190km at Rally Australia. It is a pleasure to drive; it does everything it is meant to do well and reliably but it also does something it wasn’t supposed to do and that is beat the best Rally Cars in the game! I am very proud to drive the Polaris RZR product, who would have thought that two nights in a row a $40,000 machine would be the fastest vehicle on the Super Special Stage up against $200,000 machines…incredible!” said Cody Crocker.
To put these times into another perspective the fastest ARC car class time was by Pedder/Moscatt in their Renault with a 1:57.2. The RZR’s were a massive 10 seconds faster!
We also would like to add our congratulations to Scott Pedder who in his Renault Clio R3 ARC Car placed first in the ARC Class. Pedder continues to chase down Cody Crocker’s previous records from his Subaru days. Since the inception of the Australian Rally Championship in 1968 only a select trio of elite drivers have been able to claim to have won a rally in all seven regularly visited States and Territories. Scott Pedder in his Renault Clio R3 is chasing down this record to join the ranks of a select few being Neal Bates, Possum Bourne and Cody Crocker who have placed first in each state/territory totaling 7 rally’s.
The Polaris Racing Team now heads to Rally Victoria in November with 266 series points placed first in the 2014 ARC side x side Challenge followed by Nathan Chivers with 204 points and Michael Guest with 196 points in third.
