King of the Hammers 2010 Anarchy

Posted on 09. May, 2010 by xrr in News

In February 2007 twelve teams met at Means Dry Lake in an impromptu race across the dessert and through the canyons of Johnson Valley OHV to see who would be the King of the Hammers. The idea to blend dessert racing with rock crawling came from Dave Cole and Jeff Knoll. Three years later this race has been deemed the hardest off-road race known. It’s only held once a year and via invitation or qualification only.

This year’s race brought with it more competitors and spectators. Of those spectators were members of Extreme Roc Rigs. Some of our group arrived Monday before the race to set up camp and get a feel for the course while the remaining group arrived on Thursday night. Friday morning we awoke to the sound of revving engines and the smell of high octane race fuel. The race started promptly at 8:00am and once all the competitors crossed the start line we were off to find the obstacles, the first being Aftershock. After we watched the first quarter of the field pass through Aftershock we decide to

Adam Woodlee on Aftershock KOH 2010

move on to Chocolate Thunder. Chocolate Thunder was not as impressive as Aftershock. Most of the competitors blew through it without any trouble. One competitor passed the obstacle with a front tire completely flat and dangling from the bead-lock. From Chocolate Thunder we hiked over to Sledgehammer. We’re not sure of the distance between the two obstacles but it was a LONG walk.

Anyone that has ever heard of Johnson Valley has heard of Sledgehammer. Its one of those obstacles that is known for carnage and carnage is exactly what it had in store for the competitors of this year’s race. When we arrived at Sledgehammer both sides of the mountain were filled with spectators. As the race progressed the mountain walls seem to move because of the amount of spectators. At one point we had the “wave” going, such as one you would see in a stadium.

Our group as well as the majority of the spectators left Sledgehammer and headed back to Hammer town after the Shannon Campbell bounced his way through Sledgehammer. The trail of people leaving was unreal, it looked like a trail of refugees.