Hoek Takes Fifth in Round 11- Currently Sixth in PRO-Light Championship
Holland, MI (September 5, 2012) – A solid weekend of racing is what Ross Hoek Motorsports needed and the team’s hard work paid off with a fifth place finish during Round 11 at the forty-second edition of the Crandon Off-Road World Championships. The team even received additional television coverage thanks RHM Light Buggy guest driver, Sal Masekela and the Red Bull Signature Series production team.

When the doors opened for the Labor Weekend event at the “Big House,” competitors saw a few changes to the iconic track. The two jumps on the front straightaway were replaced with two soaring table tops and “natural” downhill jump was added to the contour of the skybox straightaway. This really allowed racers to carry more speed throughout the spectator area.
After traveling downtown Crandon for the usual Friday morning parade and festivities the team took to the track for practice and qualifying.  The new track configuration and slippery conditions confused the team and Ross stopped the timers fifteenth fastest. The qualifying result was not what the team had expected, but the Friday session gave Ross and his crew nearly twenty-four hours to decide on steps to improve on track performance.
Round 11
Saturday afternoon saw nineteen PRO-Light racers lining up for Round 11. With the Ignite Racing Fuels/ Peak Motor Oil/ Venom Energy /Allstar Performance Ford toward the tail end of the field, Hoek knew he couldn’t waste any time if he had any hopes of a top five finish.
 
The overnight changes to the truck were really working well as Ross quickly worked his way into fourth place by lap three. At that point quite a bit of contact was going back and forth throughout much of the field. Some of the door to door contact saw the running order get shuffled up more than a few times. By the mandatory caution lap, Hoek found himself back in eighth place. When the field went back to racing for the final laps Hoek went to work getting around his fellow competitors passing one truck per lap to take the checkered flag in fifth place.
“We really had to work hard this afternoon, “noted Ross Hoek. “There was some really good racing out there today, most of the contact was just good hard racing, and our Ignite Racing Fuels/Peak Motor Oil/Venom Energy/ Allstar Performance Ford really came through. Our whole team is looking forward to tomorrow.”
Round 12
Sunday’s race had the Ignite Racing Fuels/Peak Motor Oil/Venom Energy/ Allstar Performance Ford lined up on the front row in the 2nd position after the inversion. Typically Sunday’s round of racing always seems to be more aggressive than the day before and Round 12 was no exception. The Ignite Racing Fuels Ford Ranger seemed to be fighting for every inch of the race track every lap. After the nine lap grudge match that included several roll-overs and black flags, Ross Hoek finished in eighth place.
“This was a rough run today, “remarked Ross Hoek. “There were all kinds of pushing and shoving, and I put our truck up on two wheels going through a corner and made a heroic save to keep us in the race.”
The weekend also saw the Ross Hoek Motorsports Light Buggy take to the track. On Saturday crew chief Jerry Windemuller drove the Sportsman Buggy to a fifteenth place finish in the twenty-eight car field. The Sunday race had Ross’ dad Glenn scheduled to drive, but he graciously stepped aside to get Red Bud Signature Series television host Sal Masekela a chance to experience TORC Sportsman off-road racing first hand. Sal and his production crew spent three days at Crandon to create a two-hour program about the World Championship event that will be broadcast on NBC Sports later this year.
After getting all the proper driving apparel fitted and a quick test drive, Sal lined up at the tail end of the second row of the “infamous” Crandon land rush start. Quickly his snowboarding skills were applied to short-course off-road racing, and moved up a couple places by the time he exited Potawatomi Turn One. By lap three of the seven lap run, Sal worked his way into fourteenth place. Then the VW air-cooled powerplant lost power in one of the cylinders. Undaunted the first-time off-roader held his ground and finished the race in fifteenth place.  A solid run considering he never had driven on much of the track until race time.
Afterwards, Sal’s production crew gave him the nickname “Spark Plug.”
The next race is the season finale on September 29-30 at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds in Lancaster, California.
After twelve of the fourteen rounds of racing in the Traxxas TORC Series presented by AMSOIL PRO-Light Championship, Ross is currently tied for sixth place out of twenty-two competitors in the division.