Yes, there is a notch as you describe.
I took mine out last weekend on some rocky trails and purposefully tried to find some big ones I could run into and scrape on to see what would happen and all was good. I didn’t run into anything tall enough to hit the front where the notch is. You would pretty much have to hit something that was winch height to hit that notch.
It’s a lot better than the stock plastic.
We’re rolling tomorrow am, I will check in if there is any more news on how they do!
Stetson