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Bi-Polar's Arctic Cat Prowler XT UTV Desert Race Team

Lake Havasu, Arizona (7/17/2008) - Arctic Cat has long been known for their outstanding snow machines and durable utility ATV’s, that have won many racing championships, but Arctic Cat’s drive to be the best and passion for developing new products, has led them to explore the path of side-by-side vehicles. In order to pursue the racing end of the ever-popular SxS market, Arctic Cat teamed up with Bi-Polar Extreme Racing based out of Woodland, WA. Bi-Polar was given the task of taking an Arctic Cat Prowler XT 650 4x4 and turning it into a top of the line desert racer that is able to endure the likes of the SCORE series, including the legendary Baja 1000.

 

The Creagan family's Bi-Polar has an extensive history in both snow and desert racing, including Pro Trucks, which makes their pairing with Arctic Cat ideal in preparing the Prowler for the rigors of the SCORE series. Bi-Polar’s experience in desert racing is top notch and they have not one, but two Pro Truck teams to prove it.

 

The Prowler frames are shipped right off the Arctic Cat assembly line to Bi-Polar, where the crew builds the Prowler to the specific needs of desert racing. Having the bare frames shipped directly to the company allows the crew to save time and money as a lot of optional parts on a fully assembled stock machine would have to be stripped down for racing.

The Prowler’s durability has allowed the Bi-Polar crew to use many stock parts, which helps keep costs down by eliminating many higher priced aftermarket products, and the Bi-polar team swears by the reliability of the stock Arctic Cat parts. “We’ve found that when running stock parts, very rarely does a part fail,” stated Jim Creagan. “And if it does, it’s usually something simple like a bolt.”

Included in that list of stock parts are the a-arms and the tie rods. “All we do is reinforce the a-arms and add some support along the shock towers,” said Creagan. All though after market King shocks are used, there is still the same amount of travel as the stock machine as the width is kept at about 61 inches (stock width). “We’ve found that by keeping the Prowler at stock width that we can sometimes get around stalled vehicles and other obstacles much easier where as some of the wider UTV’s have trouble getting around in some of the tighter spots,” said Jim.

 

The narrow stance also allows the Prowler to straddle ruts made by the truck classes, which can sometimes reach three feet deep. “It’s easier to just straddle the ruts instead of running with one wheel in and one out. You just can’t maintain a decent speed that way,” stated Creagan. The Prowler also comes equipped with 4-wheel drive, which allows the Prowler to get through the toughest desert terrain, even the notorious silt beds of Baja. One of the most important elements that Bi-Polar incorporates into the desert racing Prowler is the batteries. “We use three batteries with switches to isolate each battery. They power our lights, which are the state of the art VisionX lights that are LED lights and only draw six amps per light,” Jim explained. “We also have our radios and intercom systems, and our air pump that pumps fresh air into our helmets so we aren’t breathing dust for 1000 miles.”

In Baja and desert racing, the right tires play a big part in avoiding unnecessary time loss brought on by flats and Bi-Polar uses BFG all-terrain radials with beadlocks. “We chose to run the all-terrain radials because it’s the toughest tire known to man. They have more wins that any other tire company on the planet,” Jim declared. “We’ve run them in many races and have never had a flat yet,” he stated. The team does keep one spare tire on the UTV just in case. “You never know what can happen, that’s just the nature of Baja.”

Besides racing in the SCORE series, the Bi-Polar team also races the BITD series and has had some amazing success. Their most recent race was the BITD Blue Water Grand Prix where Jim and his team placed first in their class and their second team placed seventh and earned 15th overall. Their results are quite impressive considering they are running bone stock motors. The top speed of the vehicles reaches about 62 mph but in rough terrain a maximum speed of about 40-45 mph is most consistent and controllable depending on conditions.

 

Even though the Bi-Polar team utilizes many of the stock parts from the Arctic Cat Prowler 650 XT, Creagan admits it still takes a lot of time and expense to get the machines ready for the grueling desert events. The cost of building a Bi-Polar Prowler costs somewhere in the $50k range, but Creagan estimates that on an individual basis that the Prowler could be built to Baja specs for roughly $10k, plus the cost of the machine, if one was inclined to do all the work themselves, but it would be a huge undertaking. “It’s a monumental effort to keep a race team going. We have a crew of 22 and 4 chase trucks. It takes several months to build the UTV, then it takes several months to perfect it, then you are still constantly working on it. It’s a never ending project,” Jim said matter-of-factly.

As of now, the Bi-Polar team is busy preparing for the 2008 Baja 1000 where they hope to be able to do what no other UTV team has done before, and that is to finish. “There are very few things left in any kind of racing where someone can complete a race and say they were the first. There’s only one first and we want to be able to be the first.” Jim said adamantly.

The Tecate SCORE BAJA 1000 takes place on November 20-23 this year where we hope to see Jim Creagan and the Arctic Cat/Bi-Polar team accomplish their goal of being the first UTV to finish and claim their spot in Baja 1000 history.