A day in Johnson Valley, California could be just like any other day in any good rock crawling area of the United States. Give most of us a rocky New Mexico desert, or mountainous terrain in Colorado, and we’d be happy, right? You’d have trails to navigate, rocks to climb, mountains to conquer, and, at the end of the day over a cold beer, lies to tell. Not so for those hoping to wear the King of the Hammers crown.
Dave Cole has, over the course of ten years, evolved King of the Hammers into a race that combines the adrenaline rush of a straight-out race across the open desert with the nerves-of-steel skill of a rock crawling competition. It is an event now synonymous with one of the toughest races in the world.
For one week in February, off-road enthusiasts transform Johnson Valley from barren desert into a veritable town with a population of over 15,000, and even its own zip code! Racers, crew, vendors, and spectators all gather to enjoy the spectacle.
Race Week
The action begins the Friday before the race with drivers checking in to receive the official course map and preparing to pre-run the course. Since the course changes each year, as does the desert, pre-running is essential to race-day success. Vendor tents open, welders and BBQs are hauled out, plugged in and lit.
For most teams, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are spent pre-running, testing, and tuning. Repairing what was broken in daylight hours goes on well into the night. The music of the kick-off party is loud and hard, but above all can be heard the scream of cut-off wheels biting into tubing; light from hundreds of bon-fires competes with the blue flash of welders up and down pit row.
Tuesday brings the first of two days of Last Chance Qualifying races; with only 21 spots available and 42 teams in contention, the competition is fierce. Thursday offers a chance to watch as the UTVs take to the track and race for a $5,000.00 purse. The excitement of the day is only a warm-up, though. The big show starts at the crack of dawn on Friday.
Friday
It’s 5:00 a.m. and the drivers, all one hundred of them, line up eagerly awaiting the green flag. The start is spectacular! At precisely 8 o’clock, thirty seconds apart they blast off the line in pairs, some straight as an arrow and fast as lightning, and some that bounce and swerve out of the box, testing the suspension of their cars right along with the reflexes of their fans. A quick one half mile later the cars merge onto a one-car-wide trail, curving around and up the first hill, out of sight.
It is now mass exodus for the fans, scattering to claim the best viewing spots of this 135 mile long race. Some head for open desert to witness these purpose-built cars as they try to tame the whoops at speeds in excess of 80 miles per hour. Others head to favorite rock obstacles: Back Door, Wrecking Ball, Elvis.
But we wanted to see the namesake of the race so we hightailed up to mile 117, Sledgehammer, just one of many “hammer” trails on the course and patiently waited the arrival of the racers.
And wait we did, along with about five hundred other exuberant fans. We climbed the hill to perch high above the action, being careful not to let loose avalanches of loose stone on those waiting below, and to stake our claim on suitable viewing rocks.
The weather was beautiful. Rain from the week before had soaked the desert making it blessedly free of dust. But that also meant that we couldn’t sight dust trails that otherwise would have given up the whereabouts of the racers. So we watched and listened for other signs of their impending arrival.
Did the helicopter circling overhead mean that the racers were finally about to show up, or were they just filming the crazy fans below? Did that guy sitting three rocks over have a radio that crackled out the news that the leaders had just left Chocolate Thunder, meaning we were sure to see them any minute now? We waited almost five hours for the first racer to come roaring into the canyon.
Sledgehammer
And then finally… driver after driver made it to Sledgehammer, widely viewed as the original hard-core rock trail. The trail begins with deceptive ease: a sandy wash gives itself up a rocky trail. But soon enough those easily managed rocks become boulders the size of the very cars trying to mount them.
Some of the drivers power up and over the first dry waterfall, landing hard on their over-worked skid plates. Other drivers choose to take the high line, getting more than a little tippy as they by-pass the step-up.
Whatever line is chosen, there is no by-pass for the big waterfall: an enormous slab of granite three feet tall on the face, sloping leftward and flanked by Jeep-sized boulders on either side. The trail forces a left turn—some rocks you just don’t drive over.
Those drivers with rear-steer capabilities made short work of the ledge. The gaping hole at the bottom and slightly off to the left did not slow them down at all. They were able to stuff themselves into the corner to the right of the obstacle and steer their back-end up and over, avoiding the pit fall of slipping into the ever-deepening hole left by drivers who had no choice but to spin tires hoping that finally rubber would grab rock.
Those without rear-steer, most of the pack, worked hard at surmounting this obstacle. More than a few tipped to the left, which made for a solid brace for the driver coming up behind. Several times we saw rear tires, suspended sideways, become stepping stones for the aggressive driver waiting for a turn to conquer the rock.
If the tipped driver was lucky, the spectators would rush in to help right the car (NOTE: this is no longer allowed as the race has evolved immensely since 2010), and if the tipped driver was really lucky this would happen without any serious damage.
Unfortunately, this was not the case for Casey Currie. A two-time second place finisher of KOH, Currie’s race ended here after several attempts to clear the obstacle and several tip-overs caused problems with both front and rear lockers.
Casie’s was not the only car to get up close to the rocks, though. It seemed par for the course to tip at this section, leaving most cars with body-damage-proof that they were here. And every time metal met rock, a roar of approval sounded off the canyon walls as the spectators shouted out their appreciation for these hard-driving competitors.
Some racers, like Tom Wayes of car #321, got fed up waiting for the traffic to clear and helped the offending driver in front with a not-so-gentle nudge up the ledge. Other drivers, recognizing the peril ahead of them, decided to winch up the obstacle before getting into trouble.
The Finish Line
Whatever method these drivers chose was OK with us. Just getting this far in the race was an accomplishment in itself. Out of 100 starters, only 43 eventually crossed the finish line. Loren Healy, a Last Chance Qualifier, has a lot to be proud of with the winning time of 6:57:53, beating out veteran Brad Lovell by only 28 seconds, and de-throning the previous king, Jason Scherer, by a healthy margin of almost two hours. The final racer to cross the finish line did so in a time of 13:27:45.
This event, combining the best and the most difficult of both sports, is a must-see for the rock-crawling and desert-racing enthusiast. If you didn’t have a chance to make it out to Johnson Valley for the 2010 King of the Hammers Race, do yourself a favor and start planning now to attend in 2011. This is an all-out, no-holds-barred race you won’t want to miss.