RHM WSORR BorgWarner Championship Preview

[hoeker]

Ross Hoek Motorsports – WSORR BorgWarner Championship Preview

RHM Signs Vandenheuvel and Gaughan to Drive Herculiner PRO-2WD for Crandon events!

Holland, MI (August 28, 2007) – The injury sustained at Bark River II, has put Ross Hoek on the sidelines for the remainder of the 2007 race season. In an effort to keep the Herculiner, Precision Gear, Toyo Tires Pro-2wd in competition at the BorgWarner Championships, the premier short course event in the country, RHM has signed Appleton, Wisconsin native and West Coast competitor, Dan Vandenheuvel to qualify and drive the #21 on Friday and Saturday. Then former short course champion and current NASCAR Craftsman Truck driver, Brendan Gaughan, will get behind the wheel on Sunday, to compete in Round 11, as well as, the BorgWarner Cup.

“I have surgery scheduled this week, and the doctors want me to take it easy for a couple of months,” commented Ross Hoek. “It’s important to our sponsors and the development of our program to make sure our truck is competing for the win at Crandon. After a few phone calls, I was able to secure two of the biggest names in our sport, past and present, with Brendan and Dan. Both drivers have had success at Crandon, so it will be very interesting to see how the competition and the fans react to the Herculiner Pro-2, when the green flag is dropped.”

The Holland, Michigan native has surgery scheduled for Wednesday, to repair the six broken and dislocated bones, as well as, torn ligaments in his left foot. The foot injuries were sustained at Bark River while the Herculiner Pro-2wd flew near the 200 foot mark, coming off the infamous “Hill”, and landed hard into the concrete barrier.

The WSORR competition begins Friday afternoon, August 31, as RHM and the top PRO-2WD and PRO-4x4 drivers in the country, take to Crandon International Raceway to qualify for Sunday’s BorgWarner World Championship Cup. Then WSORR Round 10 race action takes place on Saturday afternoon, with Round 11 on Sunday, several hours before the BorgWarner Cup event.

About Brendan Gaughan
Brendan Gaughan, the Las Vegas native, hasn’t slowed down since scoring a win in the very first race that he entered, at the age of 15. Whether going off-road in the desert, or turning left on the asphalt, Gaughan craves the competition, lives for speed and wants nothing less than a victory, when he is behind the wheel of a race vehicle.

At the most recent NASCAR Craftsman Truck event, the O’Reilly 200 in Bristol Tennessee, Brendan qualified second and finished the event in second.

About Dan Vandenheuvel
Dan Vandenheuvel, the Flying Dutchman, is one of only a few racers in short course off road racing that has been around for 27 years. From the 30-mile race course in Crandon’s backwoods, to the now world famous short course track, the Flying Dutchman has won SODA's Class 13 Championship twice and finished second, three other times. In 4 of the past 5 years, he has finished in the top four in PRO-2 championship points.

At Crandon’s Brush Run event in June, Dan landed on the podium in both WSORR points races, and was fourth overall in the Chairman’s Cup.

Ross Hoek Motorsports thanks its many supporters, including:

Herculiner Truck Bed Liners Toyo Tires Precision Gear
Royal Purple Synthetic Oils Fox Racing Shox Allied Racing Wheels
Lane Automotive AllStar Motor State Distributing
ATD transmissions Jeff's Bronco Graveyard C&R Racing Radiators
K&N Engineering, Inc. Oliver Racing Products Wilson Manifolds
T&D Machine Products Dart Blocks ARP
MSD Ignitions JE Pistons REM chemicals
Racer-X Motorsports Miller Electric welders G-Force racing gear
Stoner Products Optima Batteries Finishmaster / PPG
Chicago Pneumatic Tools The Printery Peterson Fluid Systems
Auto Meter Cimatron CAD/CAM systems Loctite


Contact Info: Ross Hoek Motorsports – 147 Douglas Ave., Holland, MI 49424 (616)738-0058

-Mike Reusche, - marketing MTG

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[Mary Kay]

Awesome

[DIRT Girl]

Wow!!

[hoeker]

here's the informal race recap, look for an official press release soon.

overall the RHM team is very excited about the weekends results. our best finish of 5th on saturday is not what we hoped for but excellent considering dan VH had only 5 laps in the truck before the race started and he battled back from a second row start. dan also got spun out twice during the race and struggled with my shifter. the truck was obviously fast enough to compete at crandon but unfamiliarity with the truck kept us off the podium.

sunday there was no practice scheduled but brendan was able to get some seat time doing a deal for the TV broadcasts. he showed his lack of recent short course experience but gave us some valuable input to make the truck better for the race in a couple hours.

brendan was off to a good start in sunday's points race but landed on top of another truck over the barn jump. the other driver was unfamiliar with pro-2 racing and "checked up" heavily. brendan ended up spending a lap on his roof then served a black flag penalty after resuming racing. he used the rest of the race to familiarize himself with the truck and get valuable pratice laps in for later in the day. he was a lap down but running in 3rd position on the track for the last several laps and kept right up with the race leaders to the finish.

Borg Warner racing found brendan starting in the second row behind 5 other pro-2's. As the green flag flew the Toyo Tires grabbed the ground and launched the Herculiner Pro-2 very hard and Brendan quickly found himself running 4th in front of the skyboxes. he was then hit hard twice in the gravel pit turn but was pointed the right direction and resumed racing. the next lap or 2 brendan ran very well passing dan VH in the hairpin and holding onto the leaders. as the lead pro-4x4's caught him one of them slashed a tire on the Herculiner / Toyo Tires pro-2wd with their fragmented body hangers ending our chances of a great pro-2wd finish. we normally don't pit in challenge races so brendan drove all the way back to our semi where the guys changed the tire and brendan went back out onto the track to re-record his TV voice over from earlier in the day. his last lap he posted an excellent time on the race ravaged crandon raceway.

Brendan exited the truck after the race extremely happy but also disapointed, he thanked the guys for giving him a race winning truck and blamed himself for not making his way back into the very familiar crandon winners' circle. we are very thankful brendan was available and ran our truck for these couple of races. He ran well and showed the true capability of the RHM Pro-2wd even though the finishes didn't end up where we wanted.


quotes from the weekend:

when brendan was asked by the TV crew why he drove all night to get to crandon in time to run sunday morning practice:

...i make my living racing NASCAR but this is the best racing there is...

Brendan, i think we can win in this thing

Charlie Schleevy after Dan Vandenhuevel's saturday race.

...your guys built a nice piece there, this is a great truck and i'd love the opportunity to come race it again...

Brendan Gaughan after the Borg Warner race.


The entire RHM team would like to thank Brendan and Dan for racing the truck and Veteran crew chief Charlie Scheelvy for returning to WSORR racing for the weekend to make sure these guys had the best truck available to race.