KOH 2016

A twelve-hour time limit, 110 teams, and 176 miles of the toughest terrain in the US, 50,000 spectators are what make the King of the Hammers. Our main goal is to finish before the time runs out. We race our street legal Jeep JK with our off-the-shelf EVO MFG Double Throwdown front suspension with 12 inches of front wheel travel and our EVO MFG Evolever Cantilever rear suspension with 14 inches of rear wheel travel against dedicated rock buggies. Keeping a consistent pace, picking correct lines in rocks, and minimizing mistakes was our plan for finishing the race.

8:21am Friday morning we left the line heading out to the first of three laps. The first lap consisted of about 70 miles of desert terrain. About 8 miles from completing our first race lap, the ring and pinion broke in the front differential. We limped the Jeep back to main pit and had our crew inspect the damage. The Dynatrac support crew replaced the ring and pinion with ease and got us back in the race. Three hours in the pits and two laps left to complete meant we had a lot of catching up to do in the toughest rock sections of the race.

EVO1 completed lap two without issues and headed out to the third and final lap as the sun was setting over Hammer Town. 65 miles to go, we navigated Chocolate Thunder, Wrecking Ball, Jackhammer, Sledgehammer, and through Aftershock with ease. On our way into Outer Limits and Spooners we ended up timing out of the race. We returned to Main Pit under our own power and without any additional failures.

#4452 – EVOTJ

Wednesday evening, prior to the following Mornings KOH race the Discount Tire Race Team was prepping / inspecting the #4552 TJ.  They discovered that the charging system was not working properly so we set out to replace what appeared to be a bad alternator and possibly bad battery. Late into the evening they worked on the car. Thursday Morning, race day, the charging system still had some issues. The team began working on the system, creative wiring was the solution. Unfortunately, this extra effort caused us to miss our spot in the lineup so we had to start dead last behind the Legends and Stock classes. Immediately after start we hit Short Bus to discover another racer had rolled his rig causing a 20 min delay. After passing Short Bus the TJ was suffering from a fuel delivery issue. We stopped for 15 min to repair that and off we went.  Surprisingly, after such a woeful start the Jeep behaved very well. After completing Lap One we hit Main Pit where the Race Team finished the trail fix we had used to keep the fuel flowing and off we went onto Lap 2.

The TJ held together and crawled the Rock Trails very nicely. After Passing chocolate thunder we made our way to Jack North where there was a huge traffic Jam. Being so far behind we were caught behind the Stock Rigs which were having a hard time with this trail. Sitting for 40 minutes took its toll on the TJ’s already existing electrical issues. At the top of Jack North we were forced onto the hard line and needed to winch. This ultimately would be the beginning of the end for us. The winching drained the battery which was not charging very quickly anyway.

Upon hitting Jack Hammer we were hung up on a rock and needed to back out. The TJ stalled at this point and we no longer had charge in the Jump Box. Finding ourselves as a trail plug for oncoming racers we elected to have the course workers pull us out thereby ending our race.

EVORAZOR #1951

It was a positive start to the 2016 race season and we look forward to the next race on our schedule. The Mint 400 is where you can catch us next, Saturday March 12 in Las Vegas, NV.

Thank you to our Sponsors:
Discount Tire | KMC Wheels | KC HiLiTES, Inc. | Nitto Tire | King Off-Road Racing Shocks | AMSOIL INC. | Mastercraft Safety | Impact Racing |Dynatrac | EVOMFG | Mother Polish | WARN