Time to switch gears, as we transition from old school Ultimate Adventure trail riding to full-on Ultra4 racing. Drivers will take on Badlands, as the next stop in the Ultra4 east coast circuit. Schedule of today’s events are below and we’ll be on field, in typical fashion, capturing the action.

As far as live coverage, we’re not entirely sure if Ultra4 will be firing it up this go around. If they do, it would be hosted at http://ultra4racing.com/live/ and we’ll be sure to feed in live photos as we have done in events past.

Best of luck to all drivers and teams today. Looking forward to another great race!

Saturday, July 13th
9:00AM – Badlands Off Road Park open to public
10:00AM – 12:00PM – Ultra4 and Mod qualifying – Badlands Rock Quarry
5:00PM – Badlands Off Road Park Closes
5:15PM – Start of 4600 and TREK A, B and C class race
6:45PM – End of 4600 and TREC A, B and C class race
7:15PM – Start of 4400 and 4500 Ultra4 race – 2 hour race, anticipate 20 minutes a lap with fast whoop sections, technical rock sections, narrow wooded areas (like Rausch Creek).
7:30 PM – Band and Bar open on site for fans while watching racing.
9:15PM – End of 4400 and 4500 race

It would come of no surprise to us that one of the most epic short course races, of a lifetime, is still fresh on our minds. A few weeks back, we headed out to Crandon International Off-Road raceway for TORC’s Rounds 5 & 6. This would have been a normal event for Brad Lovell, TORC Pro Light driver, but as it happened Ultra4 racers were invited out to race alongside the short course pros. As expected, an epic race followed.

Two days ago, we received an email from Derek West, recapping the race from his, and his teams, perspective. It was a good race weekend for Derek, who grabbed a 2nd place position on the first day of racing. So, without further delay, here’s a copy of his Crandon race recap, reposted with permission.

(June 16 & 17, 2012) This was the first time the Ultra 4 racers would get a chance to race at the Brush Run event held by the Torc Traxxas Off Road Championship Series by Amsoil. The Ultra 4 racers for the first time raced side by side in Crandon, WI. The 2 day event got 2 days of rain which soaked the track making it the mud run. At 5:00pm on Saturday the main event went great with Derek taking 2nd place on the podium! “Our Nitto Tires did awesome and hooked up great. The hardest part was trying to keep my visor clean from all the mud getting thrown up by the other competitors.” On the second day the stakes were a little different as the track was dry. Derek was learning how to do 4 wheel drifts and making his way towards the front, with half a lap to go and Derek in second place the Transmission gave in and Derek was out of that race. In all this was an awesome experience. Ultra 4 put on a great event and we are looking forward to the next race.” said Derek.

I have to thank all of my sponsors for their support & great products. Nitto Tires, Jimmy’s 4×4, Spidertrax, ATX, Slime, Radflo, Off Road Solutions, PSC, FK rod ends, Advanced Metal Fabricators, Yukon Gear, Branik Motorsports, Johns 4×4, Northstar, Alltech Motorsports, Custom Splice, TK Racing, Seeyouonthetrail productions, Warn, Ouverson Engineering, Sho-Me-Speed, & Rigid Industriess. Thanks to my pit crew, Travis Cook, Travis Brake, Wes Choate, my wife Ashley & daughter London for all their support. I couldn’t do it without all of your help!!

Derek’s next event will be on July 14 & 15th at the Ultra 4 Qualifier held at the Badlands in Indiana.

Have a very happy 4th of July. We have the day off today, but we’ll be back in action tomorrow, July 5th.

It was a busy weekend, but we’re now wrapping up the first set of prototype Pro Series Rotors. Next up, double disc grinding, then they’ll be ready for Glen Helen. Be sure to check out yesterday’s blog post for more rotor details.

We’re hard at work this weekend, continuing to dive into prototyping our next generation Ultra4 rotor. This all started back with Brad Lovell’s Pro Light, where we prototyped a heat-treated, stainless steel, double disc ground 1/4″ thick rotor. Essentially, an over the top performance rotor that to date, has helped power Brad to two TORC 1st place finishes this year alone, most recently at Crandon. As exciting as this rotor design was, we skipped calculating the costs as in the end, it would likely not make financial sense for an Ultra4. Sure, it works well, but that doesn’t mean another version couldn’t performance just as well at a fraction of the cost.

And now we enter this weekend. Above, you’re getting a glimpse at what we envision our upcoming Ultra4 Pro Series Rotor to be. Steel construction just like our current large diameter brake rotors, but with a new less aggressive, but arguably more effective, combination hole and partial depth slot pattern, finished off with true double disc grinding just as we had done with Brad. In the end, the extra manufacturing will add some cost to our traditional rotor, but it should be reasonable and affordable, especially considering the added advantages for the now blended mix of Ultra4 terrains.

The set we’re finishing up now will go under Jason Scherer’s IFS racer for testing at Glen Helen on July 21st. We’re confident they will performance as well as expected, but in the end Jason’s racer will be the evidence of that.