Moab, UT – After a 6-year dry spell, rock racing is back at Area BFE during the Easter Jeep Safari. Area BFE, the legendary haven to off-roaders, hosted one of the biggest and best Dirt Riot races ever with multiple classes and 22 entries in the unlimited 4400 division.

Much like a rally, the day of racing was broken into 3 segments – qualifying, stage #1, and stage #2. The qualifying loop was in the well known competition area but the longer race stages took advantage of the extensive trail network created by the owners of BFE. Derrik West laid down the quickest qualifying time to take the pole but crashed shortly into the first stage ending his chances of a win.

Qualifying 3rd, Brad and Roger Lovell quickly pushed their way to the front and took advantage of dust free conditions to separate from the field. They won the first stage with narrow margin over rival Nick Campbell. “Our AMSOIL Torchmate rock racer is at home in this terrain,” commented driver Brad Lovell, “We were brutalizing the BFG tires and unfortunately bent our first Trailready wheel in 4 years so we had to start stage #2 on a flat.”

With the Lovells in the pit, Campbell moved into clean air and led the pack. Lovell adds, “After the pit we were down 3 positions and knew we needed to finish within seconds of Campbell to take the overall win. We kept looking for his dust trail but could not catch him. We pushed as hard as we dared and figure we had him by a about 20 seconds coming into the last segment.” The photo finish was not to be, however, as Campbell broke a hydraulic line within sight of the finish line. The #232 AMSOIL Torchmate team took the checkers with a time of 1:19:34 and their first win in over a year. “It feels great!,” said Brad,”Its the confidence we need going into the start of the 2012 TORC series.”

Moab Dirt Riot
1) Brad & Roger Lovell
2) Levi Shirley
3) Brian Shirley