Interview with #777 owner/driver John Brock.

Round 1 of W.E. Rock’s Dirt Riot Southwest took place Sunday, March 9 at Thompson’s Ranch in Congress, Arizona: John Brock was driving, Mike Klensin was co-driver.

Race1CongressAZ
Photo by Don Lawrence

In our pre-race interview, John expected to blow out tires; but that didn’t happen.

“That’s because we have tireballs. They’re like little pillows inside the tire. If the tire gets cut or banged up, they keep the tire inflated and drivable. They are very expensive.” Between the tires and tools he needed for installation, they cost $4,000; but he feels it was worth the investment. “A cut tire wouldn’t have taken us out of the race. We’ve been taken out that way, that’s why we put those tireballs in. Because the cost to get to the race, entry fees and such, it’s way too expensive. It costs a lot of money to get there.”

He sounded tired and disappointed; he had good reason. “We arrived up there at Congress on Friday morning and got a chance to pre-run the course a few times, came in and made a minor repair on the car. Then we got back out to run it a couple more times. Thought we knew it pretty well. On Saturday it was all the rock crawling, not the racing, so we didn’t do anything.

Sunday morning we had to qualify for starting position; all seven cars qualified within about 6 seconds, which is phenomenal. We qualified sixth out of seven cars because I got hung up on something. We ended up starting in sixth position because of that.

The first lap was fairly uneventful, except for getting stuck on a big rock that ended up damaging the drive shaft; although we didn’t know it was damaged at the time.

Race1CongressAZ2
Photo by Don Lawrence

We went another lap and a half after that and the rear drive shaft came flying out. This race the shocks were working much better and we were driving faster – but unfortunately, when that drive shaft came out it took us out of the race. At that point we managed to limp it off the course and back to the main pits. We surveyed the damage and decided to call it quits for the race.”

John is confident repairs won’t take very long; that’s good, because the next race is the first week of April. “We need to replace parts of the drive shaft and transfer case that broke. It’ll probably cost $500 or so, but we should be in good shape for the next race.”

He’s glad the next event is in Tucson, close to home. “So I don’t have to go traveling all over the place to get there. The area where the race track is is nothing as rough as what we just had at Congress. This is more of a desert race, not much rock crawling.”

Check back for John’s pre-race comments.

Dirt Riot Southwest #2 – Tucson, Arizona
April 5, 2014 at MC Motorsports Park
Tucson, Arizona
Directions: http://www.werocklive.com/events/dirt-riot-southwest-round-2-2/

Follow the racing action at Team Crossed-Up Offroad
https://www.facebook.com/RockingJOffroadRaceTeam