Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

We’ll never forget Brad’s first ever TORC short course race. It was roughly three years ago, and took place at the legendary Crandon International Off-Road Raceway. This was also our first TORC race and after staring at Crandon’s death defying Turn 1, we may have been more nervous than Brad!

He got thru that first race, somewhere in the back of the Pro Light pack, and although he spun out a few times he didn’t get hurt or destroy the rig, so we thought it was a win. In our minds, we knew it was just a matter of time before the world we see Brad Lovell on the TORC podium. Yesterday, that idea became reality.

After two solid runs in TORC’s rounds 13 & 14 competitions, Brad Lovell of Lovell Racing was honored with winning the entire Pro Light series. When Brad spoke on the podium, he gave thanks to all of his early sponsors for taking a chance on a rookie team. The feeling was mutual for us, but in the opposite way. This was also our first venture into Spider 9 components specifically for short course, so we greatly thank Brad and his team for trusting in us as well.

Congrats again to Brad Lovell, his family, and the entire Lovell Racing team for proving once again that hard work does pay off.

Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

For those wanting higher resolution photos from the American Rocksports Challenge, we have you covered. We’ve uploaded the full resolution photos to Flickr, available HERE. All photos are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 3.0), so feel free to download and share. All we ask for is credit :) .

Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

We’re at the end of our American Rocksports recap, and we can’t sign off without a shot of Derek West. He managed to break a 300M stub shaft, after 3+ years of hard racing, which is a  friendly reminder to always carry a spare. Unfortunately, his only spare on hand was an old non-Spidertrax stub which, after installed, only lasted a few laps. Too bad, Derek was very fast and certainly one of the top drivers to watch. Although ARSC didn’t go the way he planned, he still manged to grab a 7th place spot overall for the Pro Series. Which leads us into the next bit of information.

Ultra4Racing.com just released the official Pro Series placings. As expected, Brad Lovell did capture top honors (congrats Lovell Racing!) with Erik Miller in 2nd and Loren Healy in 3rd. Can’t resist, but all three top spots were won with Spider 9 axles (we’ll take that!). Here’s the list of Pro Series champions:

Looking over the list, it would appear Spider 9 axles & components actually took 9 out of 10 Pro Series spots! Now that’s pretty cool, and always nice to see. More action is on the way, with both Ultra4 and TORC taking to the short course track this weekend. We’ll be there, yet again, to capture the action so stay tuned for more photos and stories.

Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

Rob Lynch, who’s featured above, has been out of the drivers for a while  due to a leg injury. With the help of HazzarFabWorx, and some new Ultimate Unit Bearings, Rob got his IFS racer back in action. Not only did he finish the American Rocksports Challenge without a single known issue, he ended the day with a 10th place spot, guaranteeing his place in the 2013 King of the Hammers.

Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

We’re nearing the end of our American Rocksports coverage, and after coming across this photo of Jason Scherer we just realized we haven’t discussed the way this race was formatted. There were 35 Ultra4 racers in all, and the race kicked off with the drivers randomly divided in half. Each of the two groups would race in a preliminary qualifier, with the top half of each racing making it to the finals. After these two preliminary qualifiers, those that didn’t make it to the finals had one more chance to prove themselves in the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ), where the top four drivers from this race would go to the finals. All races where 10 laps each, so with LCQ some drivers raced nearly 30 laps over the weekend. Pretty insane considering how demanding both the short and rock courses were.