Spidertrax | Thom Kingston | CC BY 3.0

If you had your traffic monitor on, it would have been flashing red in the rock quarry. Home to The Wall, and many other wall like obstacles as show here, the rock quarry was also home to unbelievably dense traffic. Dave Cole lived in the quarry all of race day, ensuring some level of organization as dozens of Ultra4s battled their way thru the dense mix of rock racers of varying levels of capability.

One Ultra4 that found their way thru the madness, with calculated effort, was Jason O’Neal. Driving his freshly minted, Spider 9 powered, Bomber chassis for the very first competition, Jason made short work of just about every obstacle Badlands had to offer. He also planned well for this race, grabbing Brandon Davis as his co-driver who just so happened to have run this course last year. With the right parts, the right driving style, and the right co-driver, Jason managed to tackle a course for the very first time with a brand new vehicle and secure an 8th place finish… AND a qualifying spot for the 2015 King of the Hammers. As far as first time races go, this is about as good as it gets, congrats Jason!