Down and Dirty UROC Rockcross

Aug. 20, 2007 By Press Release

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	Semi Finals

The first ever head to head rock race went down in Salt Lake City and Lovell Racing was there to see what it was all about. Brad described the event as follows, “If rockcrawling compares to fencing, XRRA is like boxing, and this is like a knife fight in Tijuana.”

Nervousness and excitement abounded as teams ran time trials to determine start positions. Brad Lovell, with off-road veteran Mike Foster serving as co-driver, qualified in 4th place. This put them in the first heat of the first ever Rockcross. “My skin was crawling and I wanted nothing more than to have that green flag drop. Nobody knew how this was going to work out. We took off and all the excitement turned into sheer focus on beating the two trucks next to me. Luckily, we got the hole shot and hit the rock first. From there we never looked back and got a ticket to the semi-finals.”

The next race pitted Team Lovell against Stumph and Schiesow. “These guys have good cars and are good drivers. We didn’t have lane choice and barely got to the rock first. Stumph hit us and drove over our hood onto the rock. We squared in behind him and made a quick pass on the backstretch. He was bumping us in the fast turn but lost control. We had clear sailing for the next two laps as Stumph and Schiesow battled it out for the rest of the race.” Lovell was now in the finals.

Lovell, Maybe, and Schiesow made it to the final round and had a pretty even launch from the gate. Maybe made it over the rock first and Lovell was on his tail. “This guy was fast and we had a good race going. We would get right on him in the rock but there was no room to pass. We came out of the rock with me on two wheels looking to roll. I had to lift to get the inside tires down and Maybe got ahead. We then came within inches of rolling off the next climb and I was forced to back up. We plunged over the rock and into the unlighted dust. I couldn’t see the hairpin turn and ended the race upside down with a face full of dust. I got to hand it to Jimmy Maybe for some extremely fast heads up racing.” Brad and Mike walked away with 2nd Place after the ride of their lives.

Check out some awesome videos from the race at Lovellrockracing.com. After the FABTECH Ford Ranger gets extensive inspection and repair, Brad and Roger Lovell will again team up for the WE-Rock US Finals in Houston, Texas Sept. 15th – 16th.