Lap one was 52 miles through the desert, lap two was 63-miles long and lap three was 69-miles long, those last circuits going through some of the toughest rock trails – known collectively as The Hammers – on the planet. Drivers from 12 countries, trophy truck champions who've come from Paris-Dakar and the Baja 1000, guys who had spent big-money sums like $250,000 on their rigs were lined up to win, or just try and make it back before the 14-hour cutoff time.
The image above shows 129 Ultra4 racing rigs lined up for the start of the 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers. In case you missed Part One that explains why they're there and why they might be doing the most difficult and absurd one-day off-road race in the world, check it out. After a week of races in other events and two days of qualifying for the big show, the men and women who made it in were lined up to do three laps of a course around the 140,000-acre Johnson Valley OHV area in California's San Bernardino County.
It was a local guy from 90 miles away who beat them all...
It took two days of qualifying to establish the starting grid, and perennial KOH contender Jason Scherer took pole position. Shannon Campbell, who's won KOH twice, lined up beside him in second. And behind them were top trophy truck drivers TJ Flores and Robby Gordon, making the switch to Ultra4 rigs for the race. Qualifying was held on a short course that wasn't part of the race circuit, so the times weren't exactly representative, and much of the qualifying lap was desert, so seven of the top ten runners were in rigs that had independent front suspension, since the desert is where IFS excels.
Not only did the top two drivers have IFS, they were in single-seater cars – that meant they'd have to drive, navigate, make sure the car was running properly and solve any issues, like winching, on their own. That led to scenes like the one last year when Scherer had to get out and stack rocks just to get through qualifying. This year, Scherer had overcome setup issues with his car – and a rollover (watch the video below to see that) – for the right to be first on the line.Randy Slawson qualified in ninth, and did it by competing in the Last Chance Qualifiers, run for those who haven't pre-qualified by doing other races in the Ultra4 series. He's done KOH since the first running in 2007 and won it that year as a co-driver. Now he drives and his brother is his co-driver, and each year, KOH is the only race he runs. Slawson is from Grand Terrace, California about 90 miles from Hammertown, and builds his own rigs (as many drivers do) out of a shop called Bomber Fabrications.The green flag dropped in cold, windy and dusty conditions at 8 AM and Scherer and Campbell took off, each set of two drivers released 30 seconds later. A rock trail called Back Door had to be done on one lap of the driver's choosing, and as driver Derek West had predicted, all of the top guys who had come from desert racing elected not to do it on the lead lap so that they could duke it out on the dry lake bed and perhaps lead the race. But Back Door gets clogged up with drivers broken down or just trying to make it over, so a lot of other drivers planned to do it early.Campbell did Back Door on the third lap, Slawson did it on the second. Along with a lot of luck to get through without any major breakdowns, Slawson got to the rock waterfall when there was no traffic and made it up without incident. Other drivers weren't so lucky; Campbell made it up Back Door, but at another rock gully, he flipped and got turned around, then drove the opposite way on the course. It wasn't until he came upon a competitor coming in the proper direction that he realized his mistake. That's what not having a co-driver can do. Campbell also had incidents like this, at the rock field called Elvis:Like Camaro vs. Mustang at the back, one of the hot divisions concerning Ultra4 Racing rigs is who's got an independent front suspension (IFS) or a solid front axle (SFA). Since King of the Hammers and Ultra4 developed from rock crawling, SFAs are the norm and IFS guys are still rare, many of them coming from desert racing where they're used to working with IFS on their trophy trucks. Said BJ Baldwin, the championship trophy truck driver and winner of the Baja 500 and Baja 1000 who drove an SFA rig in his first KOH, "I can carry my suspension parts from my trophy truck in my hand they're so light. The front axle on the car I'm driving is 550 pounds – and with so much unsprung weight I'm just trying to get the shocks to work like I like."
The IFS guys are fast in the desert, but the SFA guys don't think its ready for the abuse of rock crawling. Said Derek West, "This is not an IFS race. In the desert they're gonna kill it, that's where it will do its job. But these guys with IFS cars, they can't hold up, their wheels won't hold up. And they build wide and long – I'm at a 103-inch wheelbase for this, lots of IFS cars have 118 inches and they're a foot wider. That just puts a bigger bullseye on the belly pan."
Seven of the top ten on the starting grid were IFS rigs because they're so fast on the sand and usually run by top drivers, but the race was won by an SFA rig. Shannon Campbell, however, who's won the race twice, drove an IFS rig for the first time and came in second.
Another great thing about the Griffin King of the Hammers and the series is that the 'little' guy is still in it with a chance because more money won't get you the trophy. Baldwin said, "They don't have the technology of trophy trucks, but I'm not sure it would matter." Money alone won't get you the trophy. Randy Slawson is a local Southern Californian who built his own rig, and he won the race. Yes, he's with Bomber Fabrication, a company that builds rigs, but he's not Rich Racer Guy. Derek West said his rig cost about $85,000, and while he's sponsored by various aftermarket companies, he works a 9-to-5 job during the week in Missouri. He qualified tenth and finished sixth. Last year, he was fourth, two years before that he was third. As we were told several times, even with truly unlimited racing – you can build any kind of rig you want – "You can't buy this race."
We drove from our home base in Los Angeles to the event in an Audi Allroad. We were genuinely pleased to learn of the reintroduction of the A4-based Allroad to the Audi lineup after the first generation wagon disappeared – this, even though it doesn't have a manual transmission and a diesel, which is what auto writers seem biologically programmed to go nuts for. We'll have more to say about it a little later, but we absolutely love almost everything about it. Knocks on it are the 211-horsepower 2.0-liter turbocharged engine, which could use a few more ponies, the twitchiness of the throttle and brakes, which makes things a little jumpy until you learn how to be smooth, and the navigation system, which regularly laid out some routes we could only describe as "crazy."
But it's got all that Audi goodness we've come to expect; it handled the sandy, rutted lake bed with no problem; the panoramic roof keeps the interior from becoming stern; there's plenty of place for gear and the ride is phenomenal – the air suspension acts like reform school on bad roads. And after three days parked outside the KOH central compound, we returned to discover that someone else appreciated the car, too, having written in the dust on the hood, "KOH is awesome, nice car BTW." Agreed on both counts.Unless you have Verizon, which we don't, there's essentially no cellphone service on the Means Dry Lake Bed. People talk about reception spots like they're El Dorado, pointing out these sphincters of radio-wave goodness that occasionally open up and deposit a bar or two of usable reception, but there was only one that ever worked for us: The Magic Bush.
On an out-of-the-way stretch between base camp and the Chocolate Thunder rock trail, it took some work to find it and we don't know if we could do it when the lake bed is empty since it looks like a million other bushes. Frankly, it looks more like a crop of dead sticks that used to be a bush a long time ago, but it was magical and completely reliable. Get within 100 feet of it you get 5 bars of 4G service. Go 101 feet away and you get zilch. Praise be to The Magic Bush.The sense of community extends to the racing, as well. We can't remember ever having been at a race where the drivers had a professional's hunger to win, but once out of the cockpit they were just the guy or the gal chatting with you in line at one of the food trucks from Daddy's Famous Foods. There are no VIP tents, no ropes, no sacred areas beyond anyone's own campground. Drivers who had finished qualifying and the race came out to chat with the fans in front of the jumbotron, and congratulate other drivers who had finished. Slawson did donuts in the finish area before he crossed the line.
Even though the race is big time, it's small enough and still has just one man in charge – not an organizing body or a federation, so Cole can still bend the rules to allow extreme acts of kindness. Two experienced drivers with terminal brain cancer, both given less than a year to live, wanted to do this race – and finish if possible – before they died. Cole let them in without having to qualify. On race day, one of them was so sick he couldn't get out of his hotel room. The other, Eddie Petersen, was the last driver across the line in a time of 14 hours and 54 minutes, almost an hour beyond the official cutoff, but officially classified as a finisher. Everyone was ecstatic for him. When you can give a guy a check-mark on his bucket list when his time is almost out, well, who's going to complain about that?
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