Matko didn’t even know he’d have a GNCC ride for the rest of the season after his own machine blew an engine at the last round before the summer break. The Wicked Bilt squad brought him onboard, and he immediately shined, finishing on the podium in two AWRCS races including a win, a podium at the Eastcoast UTV Nationals, as well as the most recent Powerline Park GNCC podium finish.

“It blew up at the last race and they came to me to see if wanted to race with them,” said Matko. “A lot of people said, I wouldn’t like switching to the Maverick, but I like the Can-Am a lot better than the Polaris.”

Matko ran a GBC Mongrel tire on his Can-Am Maverick here and it propelled him to the lead on the first lap after starting on the second row. An off-course excursion during  the race moved him back to third at the finish.

“The course was really hard packed and the GBC Mongrel is a lot like a truck tire, so we took a gamble,” said Matko. “The Mongrels worked awesome, along with our PR2 tuned Fox shocks, and the Trail Armor kept the underside safe. Any time you can get on the podium in GNCC, it’s an achievement. There is a lot of strong competition out there.”

Plavi recently wrapped up the AWRCS UTV Championship, so he was coming off the GNCC summer break on a high note.  He was second out of the gate and was running in the top three in XC2 for most of the race. Unfortunately, contact by another competitor’s UTV late in the race took away any chance at a podium finish.

“I got hit late in the race, and that was it,” said Plavi.“It was just bad luck. I know we had a buggy to beat, but we’re still in decent shape in the points and we’re looking to run up front at the last race, glad to be running a WickedBilt steering rack, and OMF wheels, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to limp the 555 to the finish."