King Of The Hammers 2012

[Ken]

Well....I got home Saturday afternoon from the 2012 King Of The Hammers. What an awesome trip....so glad I went. Auburn Extreme Powersports sponsored a RZR XP in the UTV Race on Thursday. Jeff took his toy hauler, my RZR and 4 motorcycles for the trip. We left Thursday at 1PM and arrived at 11:45PM. After heading over to the AEP tent, we finally got to bed at 3AM.

Of course all pictures are here: http://www.atvobsession.com/pictures/koh2012/index.html


Around 10am, we headed over to Chocolate Thunder for the KOH qualifying. The basics are, the Top 20 from last year automatically qualify. During the day, the masses run a mini-KOH to qualify. The top times were in the 4 min 50+ second range, the medium times were in the mid- 6 minutes and the slower times were 7-8 minutes or bust.

The crowd gathered for the day....and grew throughout the week at Chocolate Thunder.


Usual carnage


A rare visual of HammerTown in the distance


Robbie Gordon came from Dakar, to race at KOH for the first time. He had never rock crawled before, so he selected Lance Clifford of Pirate4x4 to be his co-driver/navigator. I highly suggest watching his full Qualifying run. He ended up in 5th place, with a time of 5 min and 6 seconds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57ZXGTuf_uU&hd=1

The top 20 guys run the course in what's called Happy Hour....10 go Tuesday at 4PM and 10 go Wednesday at 4PM....for about an hour each day.

Between regular qualifying and Happy Hour....headed back over to the tent for the UTV prep



I did get out and ride...the area is amazing...let's hope this isn't the last year due to the Marines.



The RZR was ready to go by Wed afternoon. Sans a last minute axle change on Wednesday Night.



This is typical....down in Hammertown...you often can't see the mountains.



Race morning


The pits out in the desert


at the awards....guess who noticed themselves on the Jumbo tron...



Friday...was the King Of The Hammers....chocolate thunder...looked a little different!!


I have some video here...that's just insane.....hope to work on that during the week.

All in all...Loved it. Learned a lot....Tent camping is almost impossible....it's 30 degrees at night...windy....daytime..it's 70 and sunny. So you need warm clothes and lots of sunscreen. Dust? Oy....RZR mask is a must. Let's hope that it's voted down, cause it will be a crime against family recreation to see this place go...there's no place like it.

[Ken]

I filmed a lot of the race, and the co-owner's son put 2 Go-Pro's...hence the fish eye look compared to the Contours.

Here's the longer video.....one of the best ones I've done..I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2QiU0l733E&hd=1

[Ken]

Great video if you want to see what Ultra 4 racing is like.....


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WudUbfO2-vw

[EigerMike]

you made the jumbo tron! =D> great job on the videos only thing missing MIMI MIKE!.when you race next year we need mini mike on the roof like that one guy has a chicken on his utv! looks like a blast!!!!! =D>

[Ken]

haha...mini mike would love it...since he wouldn't be pedaling.


Here's another Robbie Gordon video on the carnage of KOH

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jh-1QCuvL7g&hd=1

[Scrammy]

I got to watch some of the race over on Pirate4x4. I wish I lived close enough to actually go out there. Looks like you guys had a lot of fun!

[Kodiak]

Great pics and video Ken,
we had a great time at KOH too. seeing and hearring the race rigs going at it was awesome. and the Johnson valley area is epic!
so on thurs we watched some of the king of the motos, and the utv race here a couple vids i got.

http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g295/ ... C12085.mp4



http://s59.photobucket.com/albums/g295/ ... C12090.mp4




Then later that day i wanted to go rock crawling with the buggy. we found some people heading out to outer limits and blasted across the dessert to hit the furthest rock trail from hammertown. the buggy was doing great on a super challenging trail. and about 1.5 miles in right after this pic was taken



i got it wedged in 2 holes one for the passenger front and one for the passenger rear tire. In hindsight i should have gotten out to see what was wrong but i had a good spotter .... anyways. We tried crawling it really slowly forward and all of a sudden he yells STOP!





i had broken one of the the last stock pieces of my buggy the knuckle! ugh. so we catch a ride back into hammertown with a toyota that had broken a hub and found a new reid racing knuckle then headed back out to fix the rig. we got it back together and babied it back to camp and pulled in at 1AM 7 hours before the main race started!

it was an adventure i got the other knuckle ordered so hopefully that was my last weak link

[Ken]

Thanks for the update...BTW..I fixed your post..your code was a fucked up...LOL.

Movies should be URL and Pictures should be IMG.

I heard from Scott something broke...but he wasn't sure what part. I guess you found a place to park it and leave it...I never saw you again after you stopped by the camp. Not quite sure why, but Bob Gordon, Robby's Dad was in our camp for like 2 hours....telling all kinds of stories....pretty cool..I think that was Thu or Fri night.

[Kodiak]

thanks Ken yeah we just left it on the trailer after i broke it. i think i passed you on friday i was bombing across the dessert on my atv and i think i passed your rzr heading to chocolate thunder. that was an epic trip for sure!

[Ken]

thanks Ken yeah we just left it on the trailer after i broke it. i think i passed you on friday i was bombing across the dessert on my atv and i think i passed your rzr heading to chocolate thunder. that was an epic trip for sure!

LOL...in all that dust...it's hard to see anything...you've just got your head on a swivel to not get T boned.