Head-to-head at TECT Park

The championship is heating up, and the new class 2 for modified UTVs is where the action is hottest.

This weekend at TECT Park halfway between Tauranga and Rotorua, Noah Hutchison and Carl Ruiterman go head-to-head in the new (semi) open class, Yamaha vs Yamaha. Noah’s the leading proponent of class 2 right now, and battled through mechanical niggles to win at the opening round. Carl is The Man. Multiple outright, North Island and S class champion, he builds the best Yamaha UTVs in the country. That’s a short way of saying he builds the best UTVs full stop. In fact, apparently S class racers have been staying home because they can’t match the pace of the Yamahas, or so the story goes. Nothing to do with driving ability then, it’s all about the vehicle.

The arrival of Yamaha’s YXZ reset UTV racing in New Zealand. The legendary Yamaha engine tech applied to a neat three-cylinder DOHC engine running through a proper gearbox (none of this CVT whining) in a superbly AWD adapted chassis. It’s going to be interesting to see these two go racing.

Noah, of course, has the championship advantage, having scored 68 points at the opening round in Manukau. He was up against Cam Paton there, but this weekend he meets the master, Carl. That does mean he can focus on the championship and finish second behind Carl all day, but I don’t think that’s Noah’s plan. He’s a born racer.

So as always, the National Championship is three rounds in the South Island and three rounds in the North Island, comprising one Short Course round, one Long Course (Enduro) round and one combined Short Course/Enduro round in each region, each round having available a possible maximum total of 72 points per class.

I’ve been busy prepping for our next race outing, the one-day short course championship event at Palmerston North. That’s a long haul in these times of fuel price hikes, but it’s worth it, the track is great and the Palmie club is pretty good, almost as much fun as the Otago mob. Almost.

The Giti Chev is pretty much ready, just some wheel/tyre swapping to do to make sure we have good crisp treads on for those often-muddy starts. I’ve been keeping an eye on the body panels, too – offroad racing might not be officially a contact sport, but we all know how these things happen, don’t we?

I’ve also been watching trends in the USA recently. With the addition of class 2 to the UTV ranks, it seems there’s now a further tsunami of machinery could line up.

The one that caught my eye is Segway’s Super Villain, now available through a small dealer network in stock form for $58,990.

A 173kW/380Nm 2.0-litre naturally aspirated engine as standard suggests this will be a race winner out of the box.

If the price makes people squint, remember that the less powerful Polaris RZR Pro R (turbo, 131kW) will set you back $44,000.

An extra 42kW is a huge advantage, well worth the extra dollars.

The Super Villain fits into current rules in the ‘open’ class 2, but the class itself is not actually open, having specific limits on things like tyres.

It doesn’t fit in S class for modified UTVs or even into U class, both of which have an engine capacity limit of 1.0-litre.

I wonder if it’s time to have a long, objective look at the rules for UTVs, which now make up almost half of the sport’s active championship-level entries?