TRUCKEE, Calif. — Truckee Ultra4 driver Woody Rose Jr. is the 2022 West Series points champion after racing to a first-place finish at last weekend’s Legends of the Fall national finals event.

Rose entered the final race of the off-road race season holding a slight edge in points, but a first-place finish on Saturday against the top racers in the nation sealed the regional championship.

“I loved it, it was an awesome race,” said Rose during a post-race interview. “I enjoyed it the whole entire day.”

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Rose, 21, qualified fourth for the finals in Disney, Oklahoma and went on to complete seven laps on the course, finishing with a total time of 1 hour, 36 minutes, 29.457 seconds to with the race by more than a minute.

Ultra4 tracks force drivers to navigate whoop sections, rocks and boulders, jumps, cliffs, and several other features. Rose said strategy was key in making it around a course where drivers had to weigh risk versus reward when attempting to take one certain features and lines.

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“You just feel out the car, feel out how everything is going to hit,” added Rose. “You look at it and it’s going to go one of two ways — it’s either going to be really smooth or really rough.”

Rose, who is a rookie in the Ultra4 4800 Limited Class, finished the season with 5,912 points in the West Series, claiming the title by 110 points. He closed the season in fifth place in the national standings with 7,512 points. East champion Ryan Taylor, of North Liberty, Indiana, took first place in the national points race with 7,670 points.

Rose was on the podium at each of the five events he entered in the 4800 Limited Class, including a win at the race in Sturgis, South Dakota. He built his car with step father Derek Trent at Trent Fabrication, their family-owned shop in Reno.

He said next season he plans to race for a national championship in the 4800 Limited Class.

“National championship, that is that plan,” he said. “We’ll see how that works out.”