Presented in partnership with Polaris Factory Racing
Baja California. It’s a Mexican peninsula featuring rocky peaks, sandy desert landscapes, and cratered ground akin to the surface of the moon. Perfect for some high-speed, heart-pounding off-roading. At least, that’s what race teams like Polaris Factory Racing think when they look at Baja’s mystifying terrain diversity for the storied SCORE Baja 500.
But even if you’re not a die-hard off-roader who lives in a perpetual state of dust and dirt, the excitement is palpable. As such, you might imagine my excitement to accompany Polaris Factory Racing to the storied SCORE Baja 500, a 50-year-old feud between man, machine, and some of the most challenging terrain on Earth.
The race involves dozens of competition classes covering everything from 1,000-horsepower trophy trucks to light, agile off-road motorcycles. However, Polaris was most excited to send its second-generation RZR Pro R Factory against the rest of the field in the Pro UTV Open. The Pro R Factory, a lighter, purpose-built take on the brand’s RZR Pro R UTV, meant business.
Now, the Polaris RZR Pro R Factory is based on the current production RZR Pro R. However, in their bright racing liveries, it’s hard to believe the second-generation RZR Pro R Factory is anything other than a top-down custom racing build. Consequently, the first things on-lookers will notice are the aggressive FOX shocks, removable Technique Inc. bumpers, and copious carbon fiber. As you might imagine, the featherweight carbon fiber paneling saves some serious weight. Along with the Method Race Wheels beading technology, the Pro R Factory saves around 100 lbs over the current Pro R platform.
However, much of the Pro R Factory is the same setup you’d find on the current RZR Pro R. For instance, the Pro R Factory uses the same 2.0L ProStar Fury inline-four-cylinder engine, albeit with a host of MoTeC componentry to prepare it for world-class off-road racing. Additionally, the Factory off-road UTV uses the same transmission, CVT parts, ball joints, trailing arms, power steering rack, and control arms as the stock RZR Pro R.
Team general manager Ryan Thomas believes the Pro R Factory represents a special prospect for racing hopefuls. “The objective is to remove barriers to entry in off-road racing. It’s not unlike buying a race-ready car from Porsche or Ferrari and a true testament to what Polaris is doing in Minnesota.”
This year, Polaris Factory Racing returned to claim the win yet again after then-23-year-old Brock Heger took the top spot in 2023. Of course, even as returning champs, the Polaris team had a tall order to defeat rivals like Can-Am in the Pro UTV series. To pull it off, the team staffed four identical, albeit color-coordinated, RZR Pro R Factory UTVs.
Cayden MacCachren, Craig Scanlon, and Max Eddy Jr. had the helm of the purple, red, and blue-clad RZR models, respectively. Brock Heger, the 2023 Pro UTV Open class winner, drove the yellow UTV, although its color was a hotly debated joke among the team.
However, unlike other motorsports, you don’t just show up to the SCORE Baja 500 and expect to succeed. No, conquering 500 miles of Mexico’s diverse landscapes requires thorough planning, preparation, and training. It was no surprise, then, that when I showed up at the temporary Polaris Factory Racing Rancho Maria Teresa site on the Wednesday before the race, the team was hard at work pre-running, planning, and performing pit stop drills. Check out my video of a pit drill below!
The drills involved a “dry” pit stop practice. It means the Pressure Pro fuel system, which can force 32 gallons of race fuel into the car in around 10 seconds, wouldn’t be sending fuel into the cars like it would on race day. What the drills do, however, is prepare the support teams to do everything from re-fuel to swap a spare tire or repair damage.
Friday, the day before the race, brought with it an air of seriousness. The thrill wasn’t absent, but it was supplemented with intense focus. Understandably so, as the day before the race is crunch time. The team double-checks every last detail of the UTVs, the chase vehicles, and the complicated racing equipment.
Still, pulling off something as complicated as sending four top-notch UTVs against the mighty Baja 500 requires every team member to know the ins and outs of the race plan. So, on the eve of the race, Team Operations Director Adam Arsenault hosted a Race Day Confirmation Brief. Now, I must say that I appreciated the briefing’s familiarity.
It turns out that Adam is a former U.S. Marine Staff Non-Commissioned Officer (SNCO). No surprise then, that Arsenault covered everything from pit stop locations, to route guidance, to radio communications. And he covered it with the matter-of-fact accuracy of a military five-paragraph order operations briefing. This was serious business.
However, there was one constant in the pre-race formula. No, it’s not long-travel shocks or fire extinguishers. Well, maybe some of those, too. No, no; I’m referring to smiles. Enthusiastic faces. You’d think Polaris Factory Racing was sending a racer to the moon. Even with the serious, often dangerous reality of off-road racing in Baja Cali, the crew was, dare I say, pumped.
I was pumped too. Friday started with me hopping into a Polaris RZR alongside Brock as he headed out into Baja California’s dynamic landscapes. His confidence in his own talent and his machine was nothing short of inspiring. The angle and speed at which young Heger attacked jagged corners and blind summits is the product of the kind of skill and training you’d expect from a SCORE series winner. “Brock drives what he sees. He’s an ungodly talent,” Team GM Ryan Thomas said of the young driver.
Saturday rolled around– race day. The day started early. For everyone. The racers prepped to take on one of the gold standards of off-road motorsport. Support staff checked every last detail and contingency. And me? Well, I hopped into a 103-horsepower Mitsubishi XPander Cross with my colleagues Zac and Sujeet and set off after a vantage point in Ojos Negros. I know, not exactly a race-ready UTV like the RZR Pro R Factory.
Fortunately for the race drivers, their chase vehicles were a bit more up-to-the-task. Specifically, the most common chase vehicle was the Baja-inspired Ford Raptor. With sufficient ground clearance and a thrust-happy 6.4L V8 or 3.5L EcoBoost six-cylinder, the Raptor could reach marooned UTVs in some of the most impassable terrain. Interestingly enough, nearly every chase vehicle had a Starlink setup to stay in constant contact. The race was lousy with them.
However, the SCORE Baja 500 isn’t a grid start mad dash for the finish. No, no. There’s a lot more to it than that. Racers take off in intervals and traverse everything from paved roads to leap-inducing hard-pack earth. Moreover, drivers and teams must contend with virtual checkpoints (VCPs) and speed zones wherein regulations forbid drivers to exceed speed limits. Doing so, as you might guess, results in a nasty penalty.
Oh, it’s easier to get penalized with these violations than you might think, too. In fact, Max Eddy Jr. received a time penalty for two narrowly missed VCPs in the 2024 San Felipe 250. The result? Eddy Jr. finished in fifth instead of third in the 250-mile race. A commendable finish, but one that could have been a podium without those pesky VCP violations.
Now, I don’t have to tell you that 500 miles is a long way for a race. Especially one without an oval track and Jumbotrons covering every inch of the event. As you might imagine, then, it’s difficult to get a glimpse of the cars as they traverse dirt, desert, and short stretches of asphalt.
Our first vantage point gave us a close look at Cayden and Max as they crossed the speed zone in Ojos Negros. Unfortunately, Brock Heger lost power steering early in the race, an irritating setback for a racer to say the least. But that wasn’t his only misfortune; soon after his power steering issues, Heger suffered a broken tie rod.
Fortunately for the race team, Polaris had three race engineers and three technicians on site. And who better to assess and fix problems on the fly than the best people for the job? Consequently, the engineers and technicians came in handy with Heger’s early power steering issues following a brush-in with a ditch.
Engineers and technicians decided to remove and replace the steering rack to get Heger back in the race. However, damaged electrical wiring warranted the experts to use the wiring diagram to make repairs right there trail-side.
Of course, no UTV will cover 500 miles of SCORE Baja 500 racing conditions without fuel stops. As such, we tore across Highway 3 to reach Pit 2, an important stop for racers along the dynamic route. Even with what was quite possibly the best taco stop ever, I exited the awkward Mitsubishi crossover just in time to watch a diverse collection of off-road machines hit the pits. Check out a video of Craig Scanlon pitting and performing a quick driver swap with fellow team principal Travis Clarke below!
The pits hosted everything from shouty, supercharged trophy trucks to dust-spouting two-stroke motorcycles. Not only did race-bred machines make their stops, but several helicopters also stopped in to refuel. After all, some of the birds could only manage around 90 or so miles of the course before refueling. Coincidentally, the pits made for some awesome race viewing.
The finish line. It’s the thing every racer envisions at the end of their journey. In this case, the finish line was in the same town as the start line: Ensenada. After wading through the sea of race fans, we made it to the stage where four-wheeled and two-wheeled machines celebrated their respective victories. In fact, we made it just in time to see the winner of the Pro UTV Open class of the SCORE Baja 500 take the stage: Cayden MacCachren of Polaris Factory Racing.
It’s an impressive addition to MacCachren’s racing record. He recently claimed a commanding victory at the SCORE San Felipe 250 in the same purple Polaris RZR Pro R Factory. Better yet, the Baja 500 win marks the third time MacCachren has taken the top of the podium at a SCORE racing event. Even more impressively, MacCachren finished 19th overall in a field populated with 1,000+ horsepower trophy trucks and lightweight motorcycles.
Needless to say, MacCachren and the rest of the team proved the second-gen Polaris RZR Pro R Factory’s mettle in one of the most demanding off-road races ever. At the end of the race, MacCachren took the class win, Craig Scanlon’s Pro R Factory took fourth, and Brock Heger made a valiant comeback to finish in 12th. Unfortunately, Max Eddy Jr.’s race ended with a DNF (Did Not Finish) result.
I’d like to give a massive shoutout to the Polaris Factory Racing team for having me on behalf of BroBible. It’s really the best (arguably the only) way to get a behind-the-scenes look at the spectacular SCORE Baja 500 and the RZR Pro R Factory for you readers!
Photo credit: Nelson Flores, Erik Sherman
