12 – Day 4 Saturday – Glenn Brinkman’s Canam Maverick R - Sunraysia Safari 2025

[Music] We think of Can-Am and we don't necessarily think of something like this, do we? >> No, it's uh long long gone is the golf buggy look of the cars and the feel and yeah, they didn't feel particularly safe at first, but now they're they're a race bred car these days. So, yeah, built purpose purpose built and um yeah, they're an absolute weapon. They're um technologies come a long way in them. Uh just like a real rally car now. U la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la launch control anti- lag 7-speed sequential. So yeah, it's uh it's a rocket. They say seven speed sequential. That's very different to the original ones, isn't it? >> Yeah, the old ones were CVT belt drive. So you used to be hopping out and changing belts through the day regularly. So I don't miss that. I was never good at it. And uh yeah, know it's it's just a dream to drive it. It performed amazing yesterday. Probably a lot better than what I expected. It was uh really good in the rough stuff and tight stuff was a bit of a an issue. There's a few things we don't fit in. It's nearly 2.2 wide. So, it's probably the widest thing here. And you look at some of those narrow gates and between trees, you're like, we're not getting through there. So, you got to be creative at times. >> It is. It is very tall in suspension. It's obviously got a lot of travel, but also the wheels are so much bigger, isn't it? >> Yeah. It's running 35s. They come with 32s, so it just fitted. Um they just fit on. But yeah, they're they're a good sand tire. No good for day one, but yeah, good good for yesterday. >> I guess one of the things that it doesn't have that a lot of rally cars do have, and that's a windscreen, and that would have been a problem on day one, wouldn't it? >> Yeah, it was um day one was not fun at all. It was cold. It was miserable. We were covered in mud. Um and I was just praying for it to stop raining. So, but we got through it all right. It was um the tires were terrible for it, but it day one was a survival mode. um the road book turned to paper mâe. So we got creative halfway through the day and took photos of the road book pages and got them on the iPad. So he's now now uh loving that. So it's uh seems like the new thing. So very good. >> Yeah, you do you do have to be creative, don't you? There's no question. When when you arrived in at that finish line and I just looked in there and here you were switching things off and I'm looking going, how can you tell which switch is which? >> Yeah, they're all brown. So uh no, it was good. And and to be honest, it was pretty good on the straights. It was just circling back and this opposite lock where it was just shoveling mud in. So, but um but yeah, yesterday you couldn't had a more polar opposite day yesterday. It was just amazing. Lots of dust around. So, it's amazing how much one day does. >> Did it surprise you where you got to yesterday? >> Yeah, I was blown away. Yeah. Yeah, we um I was really surprised. You know, when we started I probably knew we were going well when we started catching people and overtaking people. I thought, "Oh, this must be a decent pace." And when we got to the halfway and we were watching people take off, you could work out how far what ground you made up. So yeah, it was pretty impressive um for the car and for for us we jelled pretty together pretty good. And this is uh Scott's first time having decipher you know how they write the road book which is not always accurate. So yeah. So we had some good goods and some bads but it was a super time. Yeah. >> So early days for it and for you. Where you two from here? Uh, probably definitely come back. There's a lot to do with it. It's still 100% standard car other than suspension and tires and a roll cage. So, standard tune, standard everything else on the car. So, there's a lot you can do with it yet, but predominantly I'll use it in Australian off-road. And yeah, it looks like it'll come out for more visits of these type of events by the looks of it. You going to see these in DECA? >> Uh, yeah, they're already in DECA. Yeah. So, uh, I think they'll be a lot more competitive this year. Last year was their first year with them in Dhaka and they had a fair few problems but um you know there's a lot they spent a lot of money on cars to get them right over there. So I think you'll uh you'll see them winning this year. You weren't running one of these in DEA though were you? >> No we ran a it was a tubular frame body in the T3 class but still had all Canm running gear but the old belt style. So now they're all running the new sequential. So yeah they'll be a super competitive wagon. >> Will that end up being a class on its own? Oh, I think they got to separate the classes even in Australia because the X3s are just chalk and cheese compared to these. So yeah, if they want to get more vehicles out, they're going to have to separate the path. [Music]