Crawling At KOH!

King of the Hammers preparation started mid-December with the first pre-run where we ran the 2018 desert loop and a handful of rock trails. Everything went really smooth, but I still wanted to make some suspension changes and knew I needed more traction for the rocks. The second pre-run was scheduled for the 2nd weekend of January to give me a couple weeks to re-prep the car. The plan was to test the new Maxxis tires, high clearance links, and spring/shock changes I made on any rock trails we hadn’t seen yet. First impressions were jaw dropping and the car continued to impress us all day. The combination of rock specific tires, soft suspension, and my rock specific additions to the RT Pro suspension made quick work of any line we tried. Returning home, confidence was very high, but that only added to the list of things I wanted to do to the car. We felt that we had a really good chance at placing well on our first attempt at this monster of a race. New rock sliders, camber links, seat mounts, frame gussets, A-arms, CVT primary and belts, fluids, filters, upgraded steering rack, RCV prop shaft, DWT Wheels, fresh Tireballs, steering and suspension pivots, my Co-driver and I replaced and upgraded almost everything on the car besides the engine and transmission in two weeks before we returned to Johnson Valley.

As expected, we were working on the car up until the day we left, and still had a few minor tasks to do on the lakebed. We finally got to the lake bed at 4:30am January 31st. Once the course was released, my co-driver went to note the first lap since it was reverse to what I had pre-ran, while others and I finished the last few items on the car and began breaking in the new CVT. That night we continued to heat cycle the belt, and hiked Wrecking ball to pick lines since I hadn’t driven it before. Friday morning, when I could finally drive the car hard, it became very apparent that the front diff would not engage all the time and when it did it was very late and aggressive. It was not race-able in this condition. We got the car tech’ed then began trouble shooting. Luckily my team is entirely mechanical engineers and certified auto mechanics, eventually we figured out the “upgraded” armature plate was the root cause and just so happened to bring the old parts with us. Four wheel drive was restored and tested about 1am.
I got lucky and was slotted in the first hour block of qualifying before the course was degraded and the weather rolled in. I drove aggressively and placed 32nd out of 118 cars registered to race, which we were very pleased with considering almost every other car had a turbo. After qualifying we had a few things to attend to on the car and organizing pit logistics for race day.
We were up before the sun, packing chase trucks and doing a last minute ride height adjustment. Pit team 1 was off to remote pit 1 while Pit team 2 stayed with the car until the start.
The start was calm, and I wasn’t very nervous. I am comfortable with the car, it’s extremely capable and I know my pace. There were broken cars every few miles for the entire first lap, I passed a few cars and got passed by a few cars,managing CVT temps and running a quick pace.We got to “The Notches” about race mile 50, which is the first rock section of the course. One car was on its roof and three others were working through it. I drove around Bryce Menzies, Cody Curry, and Nick Turner, unknowingly putting me very close to the top ten. We came into remote pit 1 physically 11th, where we filled with fuel and safety wired the muffler to the frame. Back into the desert, through main pit and onto remote pit 2A where we took a splash of fuel before starting the rock trails.The car felt 100% entering the rock trails, we made quick work of the rocks until we found our first traffic jam at the big ledge in Clawhammer. Five or six cars were stopped with all the co-drivers trying to un-clog the dam. I had pre-ran this obstacle and knew the car would climb right up the left side, which it promptly did once I had the opportunity. However, once on top of the ledge I was rotated nearly perpendicular and wedged into a large rock with the passenger front tire. I tried to crawl it but felt how bound up it was and backed off. That’s when I took some bad advise from a different co-driver, he said “No, it will make it, just a bit more throttle!”. Unfortunately I gave it another go with more throttle, having complete confidence the car’s capabilities, and BANG, I knew something had let go. I jockeyed with reverse a couple times and drove out in 2wd. When we got out and looked it over, everything looked perfect until the prop shaft spun freely while the transmission was in park…
Everything we had replaced, prepped, and worked on held up great and I knew the transmission output shaft was the next week link going into the race, but there is only so much time and money.
At this point, we know a finish is impossible. I am not going to be the guy who blocks all the rock trails trying to winch my way to a finish.
But since I am chasing national points, we decided to see how far we can get in 2wd and have fun with it. The next few trails are downhill, with a few rocky climbs thrown in for good measure. We were impressed with the car’s rock capabilities before, but now we were just confused. We did 5 named rock trails including Wrecking Ball and Chocolate Thunder in TWO WHEEL DRIVE! Pulling off and letting others pass as to not negatively affect their race. My parents timed the first 60 cars down chocolate thunder and I came through 6 seconds faster than the next person who didn’t break something. To be fair, if I went any slower, I likely would have gotten stuck. The sand hill after Chocolate Thunder was particularly tricky, it took a full head of steam from the fence line to get to the top. We made it all the way to the trench before Jack north (about mile 110), where a rear CV joint finally let go trying to climb a large rock face. This is where we decided to call the race and help everyone we could. We winched the car straight up the trench wall to get out of the way, then helped spot, winch, push, and move rocks for the next 10 or 15 cars to come through. Once the traffic slowed, we finished winching the car out of the trench and on to ground where the one wheel drive could get us out.
We got back to camp and had a champagne bottle waiting to celebrate the effort, determination, and performance of the entire team. Ultra4 and the King of the Hammers is the pinnacle of off-road racing in my opinion and I will continue to race it as long as I am able.