This is not what Polaris wants. Big reason they don't offer much support to the WORCS and LUCAS Regional series'. No need to promote RZRs beating RZRs.
100% correct! I have been saying this for a long time. Competition is what keeps a sport or class healthy. If Polaris or any of the manufactures don't have a reason or need to be there, because they are winning everything or cant win anything. Then the Board & Stockholders will start asking why are you spending your Marketing Money in that Sport, Series or Class.
For example Kawasaki chooses to sponsor and support Professional Bull Riders (PBR) and Polaris Ranger sponsors and supports ProRodeo. These company's have so many other places besides off-road racing to promote their products. And I guarantee they get way more Return On Investment from supporting the Rodeo series then they do from supporting Score or a few dozen race teams.
Years ago Michelin who owns BFG wanted to pull the plug on their off-road program. Michelin did not see the value in it, as there was no competition and their budget was really big. Most dont know how much BFG has done for this sport and what their budget used to be. It was huge! They paid for and marked all the Baja race courses, they hosted BBQ's for the teams running their tires, as they still do now, they offer pit support to anyone running BFG tires, and they also do scoring & radio support like Weatherman & Score Ops.
Michelin Corporate did not see the value in continuing after Bridgestone, Yokohama, GoodYear, General and a few more pulled out. But a few people like Frank DeAngelo worked hard to cut budgets, reduce staff, reduce tire deals / sponsorship and the support they gave to Score. Doing so bought them a few more years in the sport. And then Yokohama came back, Toyo came in, General came back and all of the sudden BFG had competition, and it was important for them to keep that Baja Champion status alive. Just look on the sidewall of the street legal A/T & MT tires, they still say "Baja Champion" on them. We now see smaller companies like Radar Tires and all these UTV brand tires coming into the sport to grab a small piece of the pie. In the last 6 months BFG has released two new Race Purpose tires, the new 35" KR2 & 30" KR2. Last year they redesigned the BFG A/T and a year before that they released the Race KRT tire which is what the TT's are using along with the original "Project" tire.
I hope next year Polaris is out there with their N/A & turbo, Can Am with their N/A & turbo and this rumored Yamaha / Arctic Cat collaboration out there racing for wins. Would not shock me to see Honda come into the sport if Yamaha can pull off a return.