Off-Road Racer Austin Weiland Talks About His Switch From Can-Am to Polaris and Takes Us On a Ride.
Polaris Off Road has set a new standard for off-road racing with the launch of the industry’s first comprehensive RZR Factory Racing program and the sport’s first-ever purpose-built race-ready UTV.
This fully curated program features dedicated Polaris engineers and an elite management team with 12-full time employees with over 150 years of combined off-road experience and expertise. Piloting the purpose-built race machine is one of the sport’s brightest young drivers, Austin Weiland.
Action Sports Today spoke with Weiland during the launch of the RZR Pro R Factory and even went for a hot lap in the new machine around the Johnson Valley, California desert, home of the famous King of Hammers race.
AST: At the time the offer to join Polaris Factory Racing is made to you, you are racing and winning in a Can-Am. How did you come to the decision to join the team and make the switch to Polaris?
AW: The choice to switch and join this team has been a long time in the making. I have had conversations with Craig Scanlon a lot over the past few months and we went through the entire process of how this would look from my own personal standpoint and a team standpoint. I was running my own team at this point and now I would be joining a team and that is a massive shift for me. Now I have people I report to, talk to or doing things for me. Overall where the Pro R is at from a performance standpoint, it is a step ahead of other machines. I had so many conversations with so many people and in the end, I felt that the opportunity was too good to pass up.
AST: You go from being a privateer racer to now a factory team. How does this change your race preparation or race craft?
AW: For me, now instead of focusing on the little details or working late nights in the shop, in the week leading up to the race, I can use the time to study more and build better strategies to win the race. I have more time to for-run knowing that when I show up, the car will be done and ready and that it will perform at the level I need it to allowing me to focus on the driving more. The less I have on my mind, the better I drive. I still want to be involved in the development as a driver so I am still in the shop studying the engineering side, but being able to have places where I can be hands off allows me to really focus on the strategy and execution to win.
AST: The goal of every racer when they line up is to win. That is a given. That being said, now you have teammates as a dynamic that you haven’t had before. How do you balance the desire to win and beat everyone out there along with the need to also be a team player and elevate the team as a whole?
AW: It’s tricky and something new for all of us on the team. This is the first time any factory team has been put together so we are all finding our place and space in the process. As a whole overall as drivers, it will be better. Having the opportunity to have three drivers inputs on car performance as well as a dedicated team of race engineers working on it, we three drivers will always have a machine ready and capable of winning any race. At that point, it becomes about the driver.
AST: Being on the first ever Factory Race team, and as a proven winner, do you feel added pressure to win more since there is now a dedicated support team behind you?
AW: There is definitely added pressure and as a team we have a target on our back because we are doing something that has not been done before. We are introducing a new level of OEM support that creates that target, but at the same time, the benefits that come with being on a Factory team will allow us to get the podium results we want a lot faster.
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