Dealer News~ King of The Hammers
Ultra4 Racing season has begun, and it did not disappoint! We geared up for the long week and headed to Johnson Valley, CA to catch up on some of the action.
For those that have never heard of King of The Hammers (KOH); we highly recommend hopping over to YouTube and checking out some of the wild races from the week! KOH is known as the hardest single day off-road race in the world; and it definitely lives up to that title. The terrain in Johnson Valley is unlike any other terrain~ filled with massive truck sized boulders, bomb craters, massive whoop sections and more metal-mashing dominating terrain. Temperatures on the lakebed vary from below freezing to scolding hot temperatures that test the ultimate endurance of a motor.
The action all starts up on Saturday with UTV Qualifying. With the roughest qualifying course in UTV racing; you could 100% plan on rollovers, crashes, breakdowns and plenty more!
#558 Chris Learning nearly rolling coming down the qualifying hill
The best time on the qualifying course was held by Cody Miller in his Can Am Maverick X3 at a 2:41.479~ leaving over a 2 minute separation on qualifying between 1st and last qualifier. Power Hour was nothing short of pure excitement~ Johnny Greaves came in hot in his Yamaha YXZ down the backside of “Shortbus” when he shattered a circlip on his passenger lower A Arm; causing a loss in the 4WD system on the front end as well as a steering issue. This forced Johnny to start in the rear of the pack and was forced to retire the car for the day. Can Am took a major victory in qualifying with a 1-2-3 qualifying order
Johnny Greaves after breaking his front suspension getting passed by #3 Shannon Campbell during UTV Qualifying
A full day of qualifying is then followed by race day for the UTV class. With 135 teams starting 2 at a time every 30 seconds in open wheel vehicles, the carnage is just beginning. The race starts with a 60 mile desert loop before approaching “Backdoor”~ one of the hardest obstacles on the course. Backdoor is notorious for rollovers; destroying suspension and making even the hardest of drivers clench at the sight of the obstacle. Backdoor lived up to its reputation and we witnessed over tens of rollovers within a couple of hours.
Left: Robbie Lunsford making a pass on a rolled competitor
Right: Wayland Campbell taking the correct line and keeping all 4 tires on the ground on Backdoor
A bottleneck rollover on the top of Chocolate Thunder caused some major delays and forced some of the racers to take alternate~ and more difficult~ bypasses. This caused even more rollovers, flat tires & broken 4WD systems forcing many racers to retire from the race. Some of the big names retired at this point~ Bryce Menzies lost all 4WD at the very top of the hill and had to turn around and limp his Polaris RZR Turbo XP PRO back to his pits. Dustin “Battleaxe” Jones lost a rear tire on the second lap and tried to skinny pedal his way up Chocolate Thunder only to suffer a loss of power and get stuck himself on top of Thunder.
A bottleneck on Chocolate Thunder retiring many of the teams
Some incredible sportsmanship later showed out of many of the team drivers & codrivers~ Rather than being upset about breaking down and retiring from the race, we watched as the teammates helped push their competitors vehicles up the obstacle as well as helping them roll their UTV’s back to wheels to finish the race. This comradery is not something new to Ultra4~ and it goes to show just how much of a family these racers from all sorts of backgrounds really are. Put them on the course and they will race & try to beat you, but if you need anything during the race they are all more than willing to give you the shirts off their backs to support you.
All in all, if you haven’t been to King of The Hammers, make sure to add it on to your must-do list. It all starts with UTV racing and progresses between classes including T1 Desert Trucks, 4400 Rock Buggies, Moto and plenty more!