We’re about wrapped up with our post RCQ photos. There may be one more hiding in the queue for tomorrow, but as it stands we managed to find just about a dozen “real camera” shots decent enough to post outside of our Live! coverage albumn. If you missed these shots as they were published, you can check them out in full resolution on Flickr and 500px. Just a reminder, all photos are licensed under Creative Commons, so feel free to share with your friends.

Also, be sure to check out the latest video creation from HeavyMetalConcepts, showcasing all the action from last weekends RCQ competition. Next weekend, we’ll be heading out to The Big House, where Ultra4 racers will take on Crandon International Speedway. Stay tuned next week for details!

Devils Den was certainly one of the rock crawling highlights of Rausch Creek, and it’s obsitcles like this that make Ultra4 racing so unique. Your flying through the fast sections, pumped to keep speed, and then you’re forced to carefully navigate through a land mine of rocks. As shown here, sometimes the fastest way is keeping your cool, pulling out the old winch, and taking a line that is open. And that’s how it’s done.

Photos continue to be posted throughout the week. You can find all of our latest ones over on 500px.

We were so busy with Live! updates, we came back to HQ with only a few “real camera” photos. We’ll be posting a photo or two a day throughout this week to build up a small set, and we’ll post an update when they’re all uploaded. In the meantime, if you’re interested in seeing the photos sooner best place to watch out for is this set on Facebook. If you’re not on Facebook, no worries because the set is public (no login needed). Alright then, back to work.

Wow, what an event. From start to finish, the action was absolutely unmatched as teams battled the coal and mud fields of Rausch Creek Off-Road Park. While it was certainly anyones game, qualifying put all eyes on Erik Miller, Derek West, Jason Scherer, and Bill Baird . As Ultra4 races sometimes go, gremlins got the best of the top three qualifiers, paving the way for Bill Baird, who claimed his first Ultra4 victory this past weekend. A huge congratulations to Bill for running an amazing race.

Once again, we partnered up with the official Ultra4 live coverage and had a blast providing live photos throughout the event @ ultra4racing.com/live . Unofficially, here’s the top thirteen who will now be qualified for the 2013 King of the Hammers.

1. 5252 Bill Baird
2. 4414 Jason Shipman
3. 816 Lucas Murphy
4. 302 Tony Riedorf
5. 4498 Jonathan Terhune
6. 4108 Tim Smoluk
7. 4418 Mike Colville
8. 327 Jim Lambert
9. 4421 Erik Miller (Already Qualified)
10. 4343 Tim Diekmann
11. 328 Mat Noualy
12. 4420 Derek West (Already Qualified)
13. 58 Dan Guyer

We’re going through a few photos we took, outside of the live coverage, and we’ll be posting them throughout the week. In the meantime, we picked 50 of our favorite photos from the Live! coverage (there were well over a hundred posted) and put them online HERE.

With a bit of luck, we managed to beat the east coast rain and get all drivers successfully, and safely, thru qualifying. How did qualifying work? Each racer had the opportunity to run a qualifying lap with tomorrow’s starting order matching today’s times. Qualifying is optional, so electing to skip today puts you in the back of the pack tomorrow.

When the dust settled, three Spider 9 powered teams claimed the top three (always cool to see). Namely Derek West, Erik Miller, & Jason Scherer of which are pictured above. The complete list of qualifying times where as follows:

Derek West 4420 01:24.6
Erik Miller 4421 01:28.7
Jason Scherer 76 01:30.6
Bill Baird 5252 01:33.3
Chicky Barton 144 01:39.9
Lucas Murphy 816 01:45.6
Jason Shipman 4414 01:45.9
Sean Rose 914 01:46.6
Mike Feagins 4456 01:47.0
Ritchie Keller 202 01:48.5
Travis Watford 4429 01:54.1
Jonathan Terhune 4498 01:55.5
Mat Noualy 328 01:57.7
Tony Rietdorf 302 01:57.7
Jim Lambert 327 01:59.0
John Sweet 366 02:03.6
Shawn Fisher 419 02:04.0
Dan Guyer 58 02:05.2
Mike Colville 4418 02:05.2
Bill Gilbert 696 02:09.4
AK Watley 808 02:10.1
Kim Matzen 4436 02:27.5
Tim Egenolf 771 02:46.7

Remember, qualifying was optional so not all teams competing tomorrow are on this list.

So, there you have it. A great day of qualifying, with a great day of racing to follow. Tomorrow, when the green flag drops, we’ll be working alongside Ultra4 once again providing live photos throughout the day. Be sure to check those out, while being part of the live chat, at http://www.ultra4racing.com/live tomorrow (Saturday June 2nd) at 10 am EST. Best of luck to all drivers & teams!