Rocking Out With Derek West

• April 16, 2013
• / Story By
  Nitto Admin

The Ultra 4 series continued with Derek West winning the third race towards the National Championship this past weekend at Rausch Creek in Tremont, Pennsylvania. After the open terrain of King of the Hammers and MetalCloak, Rausch Creek took the competition backwoods with plenty of trees, mud and hills. West says, “While I enjoy the desert and really like the fact that there is not much in the way of clean up after running in the desert, I am from Missouri and I would say one of my specialties is racing in the trees and mud.” “The biggest challenge during the race was making the decision to winch on the "CV" hill climb.  I felt like it was the safe thing to do to save the car to get to the finish line knowing we had a big lead on 2nd place.  After spending quite a bit of time winching I had to keep a decent pace to stay in the lead.  In the end it all worked out but it was close.  The physical aspect of this race was pretty high as well, there are lots of trees and obstacles to drive around which takes a toll on a drivers arms from steering and legs for braking with manual brakes.  I attribute my physical training to helping with that, it was still tough though.” “The biggest factor to winning the race was the fact that I had no flat tires to contend with.  I kept a good steady pace and kept the race car together.” Derek uses 40” Nitto Trail Grappler K-Spec tires. Congratulations to Derek West for his second win at Rausch Creek. Battling out a field of 30 entries, with only 11 completions, Derek finished the course in 3:18:11.9. Follow Derek and team on Facebook at Jimmy's Off Road Racing Team. The next Ultra4 event will be the Mexican 1000 Rally April 27-30^th. All photos courtesy of  Thomas Kingston.