Interview with John Brock, Owner of #777

Round 1 of W.E. Rock’s Dirt Riot Southwest takes place Sunday, March 9 at Thompson’s Ranch in Congress, Arizona.

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John Brock, owner of the vehicle, has been racing for 40 years, everything from dirt track, stock cars and drag racing to tractor pulling and extreme rock crawling. He’s looking forward to the event. “The weather should be great – probably in the 70s. We’ll have qualifying on Friday; maybe ten minutes of running on the course. It positions where we start at the race, which will be on Sunday. The actual race will be about 2 to 3 hours long. I don’t know the distance yet.”

60-year-old John is unable to drive the long races. “I have a very bad back, I was run over by a 12,000 lb. tractor in 2003; I’m lucky to have lived through the thing. It shattered my back. But the shock absorbers and the seats make it possible for me to race.”

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Mike Klensin will be co-driver. “What we set up this year is Mike drives Ultra4, while I drive Dirt Riot races.” Klensin will be watching the GPS to tell him where they’re going; the screen marks the danger spots, places where they need to slow down for whatever reason. “And Mike monitors the gauges because I’ll be too busy.”

They know what to expect from the terrain. “We’ve raced there before. It’s mountainous desert with lots of rocks. There’s a real good chance we’ll be blowing out tires. It’s very rough on driver and co-driver because you get beat around quite a bit.”

How’s the vehicle? “It’s in good shape. We had a lot of trials and tribulations last year, but this year we think we have them all worked out. What we had happen at King of the Hammers last year was a fluke. We raced about ten races and had a lot of problems; had 8 transmissions we went through, along with other stuff.

We’ll be doing a lot better this year than we have been. I’m really optimistic this time about this car.”

Dirt Riot Southwest – Round 1
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Thompson’s Ranch in Congress, Arizona

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