Pro Rock Racing and Pro UTV Racing kicked off it’s 2019 season on March 2 at Dirty Turtle Offroad Park in Kentucky. Featuring endurance racing with their Survival series and full on assault bouncer hills with their Hill Killin’ series, Pro Rock delivered an action packed weekend to a great crowd despite the cold and wet weather.
Pro Rock started off the weekend Friday afternoon with qualifying for both the Pro Am and Pro classes for the Survival race. Light rain earlier in the day combined with major flooding throughout the prior week made for a very sloppy qualifying course, but that didn’t stop many of the driver’s from coming in with some blistering times. Karson Adkins topped the Pro Am class with a 94.339 qualifying lap with Chris West and Bryan Hamby just barely missing out on the pole with 94.425 and 94.559 respectively.
Nathan Wolff took first in qualifying in the Pro class with a time of 84.104. Jay Shaw was second in qualifying with an 85.254. Jamie McCoy rounded out the top three recording 85.882 on the clock. Knox Griffin and Stacy Wilhoit came in with times in the 85s as well. The track was slick enough to take out three UTVs during qualifying for DNFs and several other competitors decided to skip qualifying completely and hope for the best on race day and possible better conditions. The course conditions didn’t get any better!
Wolff held on to his top spot during the race and held off a charging Brandon Davis for the win. Knox Griffin got onto the podium with a fast third place finish.
The Hill Killin’ class started later in the day and the UTV bouncers were in for as much punishment as the Survival series drivers, if not more. First, the competitors had to drive through a creek then immediately hit a near vertical climb. Next was a second vertical climb with a significant undercut. Third was a steep, undercut and off camber climb and finally each had to navigate two wheelie popping cutouts before reaching the finish line at the top of the hill.
The Pro Am class was allowed two bypass lines that were still difficult and steep with tight switchbacks. The Pro class had to do a full head on assault on the exact same lines that the full size bouncer class was attempting to tackle. To make things more interesting, each UTV competing had to make it up the obstacles twice.
32 of the top driver’s in the nation were on hand to compete in the Pro class and they put on a show that didn’t disappoint. There was a ton of carnage with broken differentials, axles, transmissions and rollovers. Half of the field wasn’t able to make it up on either of their two attempts.
Wes Kean topped the podium with the two fastest times of the day. Travis Skelton and Wesley Gatlin took home second and third in the Pro class. Jordan Olsen, Kris Hickman and Andrew Ramey were the top three finishers in the Pro Am class.
The next Pro Rock event will be held April 12, 2019 at Rush Offroad Park in Ashland, KY. This is the same weekend as the Rush Anniversary Bash, which is always a sell out crowd, so get your tickets early.
