The Evolution of King of the Hammers | Episode 1 | KOH: Origins

I first came here in 98 with my stock Tacoma pickup because I wanted to find out where the hammers were came out to a rock crawling event up in wrecking ball and I just fell in love with this place there it's so big and you can go something you can used to be able to go for miles and miles and miles they took half our land away but it's still huge and I think I like the freedom I love the desert because you can see so far and it's so wide open and there's such a variety of things you get everything you got sand dunes you get wide-open desert you got rock canyons goat trails things that you can you can make it as hard as you want or just cruise around all day a neat area I think it's good specialist the Mojave Desert the driest desert in North America located in the southwestern United States red hot on summer days ice cold on winter nights it represents one of the harshest environments our planet has to offer rocks found here date back to point five billion years or half as old as the earth itself and remain to this day a road map to the history of its creation once a sprawling landscape of lakes and rivers the Mojave came to be with the end of the last ice age and the rising of the Sierra Nevada mountains shielded from the coastal rains the land would dry and become a vast harsh arid desert inside the muddy Mojave lies Johnson Valley California whose history reflects the harshness of its own environment the US military chose the area that trained its forces to battle romp and the Nazis in North Africa at the start of America's involvement in world war ii sitting just outside the boundary of General Patton's massive 18,000 square mile desert training center to the east Johnson Valley would serve as a bombing range for the Army Air Force what is now called means dry lake the base camp of king of the hammers in 1942 was referred to as precision bombing range why PPR why would serve as one of the many ranges spread throughout Johnson Valley and beyond 24 to be exact used by aircraft operating out of Victorville Army Airfield to the west among these bombing ranges were large 600 foot wide concentric concrete target rings that were constructed as aiming guides for training bombers soaring high overhead dropping sand filled practice bombs m38 a two's being the weapon of choice after the end of the war in 1948 the training area was deactivated and cleared of munitions paving the way for the place we know today today these target rings act as a fading reminder to the history of Johnson Valley as they deteriorate into the desert floor the legendary hammer trails born from the canyons of the Hartwell hills would begin to take shape in September of 1993 with the forging of sledgehammer Canyon by the Victor Valley four-wheelers followed closely by aftershock and jackhammer the following year beginning a growing network of trails leading into the present day the Hammers would cement Johnson Valley as the premier off-highway vehicle area in the United States and also the largest I would say that Johnson Valley has a very raw feeling it's it's like being on another planet almost it's just very raw and it's untouched the trails are just super gnarly and there's just they're just limitless as far as where you can actually drive around here it's this wasteland almost of nothingness and everything all-in-one I mean it's it's so unforgiving yet at the same time it's like it's almost spiritual to be there when when you're alone I mean it's one thing to be there race week and there's 60,000 people but it's one of those places that just it draws you in you gravitate toward it when you know you're wired like these guys are out here like me and this is all we all we breathe I've come here and it rained I've come here and there was some snow on the hillside it's windy almost all the time it's hot it's cold we've started with ice on on the puddles and that same day you finish in a t-shirt the first trail out here was sledgehammer and that was the only trail now I'm sure there's twenty thirty trails and it's just all about people deciding hey let's see if we can follow this canyon up there's no trail of course so just see if we can follow this canyon up to the top so dirt dust silt heat cold sand rocks canyons lake beds up to 100 speeds of 130 miles an hour fear sticks rocks boulders whoops you name it we got it all I mean we're playing around in boulders that are that most people can't even walk through by 2007 it would also provide the catalyst for the hardest off-road race the country had seen yet the event would eventually grow from 12 guys in the lake bed on a Friday what was known as the og 13 in 2007 to a week-long spectacle that attracts competitors and spectators the world over totaling an estimated 60,000 people to an otherwise deserted desert Valley there was 12 people not 13 it's called the og 13 but there was actually only 12 and og 13 just sounded better so it stuck there was 16 vehicles on the lakebed but only 11 people showed up that we invited and Scott jeffer there and they were just wheeling or like I used to do this like yeah okay and so they became og then there was probably a handful of other people there we had some guy in a samurai that just happened to be there and he's like what are you doing on my mom and it chased this race around race he's talking about race worth two hammers yeah I know back in oh seven I got invited to go out to John smell he never been out there before Brandon from crow magazine we were doing a shoot and Moab and he goes man you got a con you got to come you got to come it's this big race it's gonna be cool it's gonna be epic one day I didn't have any money I just blown all my sponsorship money on the XR a race in Moab and he's like call your sponsors have them send you some money and go it's gonna be worth it so the race when we did the og race killers no tech no entry fee we got to face a beer and there was probably 40 people on the lakebed starting to did a shotgun start so all 12 cars were lined up side by side I don't like them they drop the flag we took off no window nets in t-shirts open face helmets air shots no GPS then hit it was it was tough when I crossed the finish line in 2007 dave cole drove up at end of the last trail on his quad and said congratulations you finished the race and that was it it was kind of like where's the dancing girls I didn't see him and I met up with one of the competitors wife it was sort of new me and she said Dara what are you doing out here so it's kind of a letdown but there was hardly anybody here at that time that's for sure it was very very informal and you know dave was out there on the rocks and we're just driving by you know it was no fanfare at the end no champagne no kissing babies not even a checkered flag it was just like cool I did tell those guys on the lakebed ass since you guys race this race you won't have to qualify when we get really big and they were just looked at me like I was insane no it's gonna happen we're gonna be screwed you don't have to qualify drink another beer Dave and we drank another beer made up more crap and while Jeff wasn't at that race that race would not have happened without him yeah Casey fold to remember he's like you got to have a name for your class you can't I was a call it 4300 you have to have a name for the class about need name and he's like I just want to call him hammered cars and I'm like Casey we have big bigger aspirations than just came out we sound boarded a bunch of names I remember I was working I was building an elephant ball under there under the bar working on the bar and Casey called me and he says dude I gotta have a name like we're going to print and I said let's call it ultra four that's it that's what we looked at we're gonna call it going hope this isn't T G version these crashed talking about Casey I remember when we first started talking about going with trying to get him to accept this to go racing and I called him up and and uh hey Casey you know this day blah blah blah the word we got the king of the hammers cars and he's like Dave you do realize we are a go fast racing organization yes Casey you guys don't go fast okay Casey you got to have to have a blue light you're just gonna you're gonna be all you're no one you're gonna be so slow okay Casey but whatever whatever you say what to get it just let us let us go race I will prove me wrong and we didn't have that blue light but we cut our teeth and we learn to me and the racers there they did a good job of putting on a good face and people talking about it it's cool it was remember we had the t-shirts that said you got passed by Rock Crawler yeah that just happened I'm particular on my car just happened you got passed by a rock color so I get my car burned down 110 miles later but I remember drawing that logo at the taco stand yeah at the taco stand on the would it right south of the 10 we drew that I've never drawn that and I go we have to make it look like as fast as we're slow so we'll put the foot school eyes behind it'll make us look like we're fast oh and then you're like but ya know where to find us okay then we'll put the website on the top and that's when we put the website up on top and that logo literally has not changed that since we drew it on the map we what to push it we had a logo so Dave Cole started talking about running all the trails in one and one race and I said listen let's do an X plane really all right well those six come around nobody did it finally Oh seven came around and he called about 50 guys all 50 people yeah we're gonna be there and nope 13 never showed up and so it's just you know it's a local place for us so that that's where I interested in yeah yeah so many people can love to me I'm supposed to come and I didn't I wish I could have been one of those original guys Dave pulls one of our club members remember the Tim benders Jeff knows somebody I've known for a long time when they did the original og race that year I was spotting for hubby Smith and the formula toy of the we rock series and dave says hey come on out do this thing and bring your cars I really need some help with this and you know my transmission is blown in this thing so I thought ah this is such a dumb idea I'll just go out and ride with ride with Toby for the day no biggie and get out say it started there so the reason it's called og 13 is after that first race about halfway through the next year when dave told me we were gonna do it for real I was gonna make t-shirts for all the guys at races for the drivers that race the first one and so I called Dave and I said hey how many and he goes 13 I said okay one original guys 13 og 13 yeah that sounds cool I like it so I get to the lakebed at the drivers meeting and I'm headed out with t-shirts and I went hey who's the 13th guy he goes it was only 12 okay a city would rise from the lake bed floor a network of RVs trailers and torrents this city would come to be known simply as hammer down hammer town had Wi-Fi a temporary power grid bathrooms assigned road system food and water even ups we deliver 351 days a year means dry lake existed as a quiet desolate desert landscape however for the two weeks surrounding king of the hammers it would become the epicenter of activity for miles in any direction 59 thousand square feet of tents probably eighty different units we have a full-service Wi-Fi internet we've got a Jumbotron we've got power sanitation we've basically little town out here with a surveyor come and lay out our vendor row and our tents it's 23 acres of camping just our hammer town is bigger than a half mile NASCAR track and there's more than there's more people camping here than there's camp in there so you know you don't just set up for the one day race that's easy it's setting up for 10 days 15 days of having people move out to the desert knowing that you're 20 miles away from the closest electricity you have to be prepared Koh would eventually grow to have multiple classes and hundreds of competitors ranging from motorcycles and jeeps all the way to the top dogs at the unlimited ultra 4 class each class would have its winner throughout the week however the top honor would be the crowning of King the winner of the few hundred mile unlimited race traditionally on Friday of race week at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas in 2008 dave cole walked up to me and said i have a dream would you mind me sharing it with you and i we weren't sure where that we was do all of that and he said what if she took rock racing and and off and rock crawling mix it with some high speed and didn't have any wool and in short he basically told us from a marketing perspective anyways that he wanted to have an event that's never been done and and second of all an event in a place that no one ever goes and then lastly a event that it requires a car that no one's ever built and so i kind of just looked at him and smiled and just wonder i mean I was and cook in complete awe it was just a you want to do what Koh really has changed the answer industry and I think they've reacted because I remember a comment back in 2008 think if people change or change their cars for you they had competition rock crawlers and they chopped off all their suspension and changed it to have their suspension I think the whole industry has done it they've they've changed to respond the Koh so our first king of the hammers and I hope I don't mess up the dates but I think it's 2007 for us so it was the og 13 we were working with tracy Jordan at the time and then my first official year would have been following that it was a special event you have to kind of use your imagination a little bit it wasn't quite like it is today there were a lot of vehicles for us I mean a few dozen if I remember correctly that showed up and so my goodness you know for the race which was one day so you would go out there a day or two before maybe and hang out and do this race which if I remember correctly was on a Friday and just like it is now so our first king of the hammers was that we were not the official axle at that time we manufactured an axle called the Spyder 9 that was really designed for rock crawling high angle of steering packed a wicked strength to weight ratio and that's kind of what made the axle so special was very light for the for the punch that it that it could pack and it just naturally kind of fell into the king of the hammer style racing he wanted light axles he wanted to be able to go fast but keeping those vehicles light was kind of the magic and how you can go fast and not constantly brake we had a significant rock crawling background but as king of the hammers kind of made its its staple and and I think it made itself clear that it wasn't going away anytime soon the axle was just naturally gravitated toward that crowd even in their form for rock crawling because the axles that you know were deemed kind of the axles you would maybe do for racing they were just too heavy so the spider on axle just kind of fit that crowd and how king of the hammers transformed us was really the drivers in that sport they wanted to go faster they wanted to steer sharper they wanted to be lighter they wanted the components to be stronger and so the the level of of manufacturing and the level of engineering to accommodate really the path of where these drivers wanted to go which was lighter and faster that definitely transformed the Spyder 9 line in a big way Nitto sat on the sidelines and watched ke wage for a couple of years until jumping in roughly 2012 that we've developed a 40 inch tall tire with the purpose of both desert and rock we knew it had potential but we didn't expect K wage to grow to the level that it is today it's grown quite a bit and it's been a good fit for Nitto Nitto was the first company that really visit us I have a feeling they were looking at us for years before they talked to us Tim Cole T was the marketing manager at the time he had come around he had worked with the with Randy rod and they were doing some stuff with Randy rod I got a call asked me if I'd come over and talk to Tomo who's a PUD now as president of Mid Ohio USA she knew everything he knew everything about us and and to me that was that wasn't how we did sponsorship before that it was hi I'm Dave I'm Jeff trust us we're doing something cool can we have five hundred bucks can we have can we have weight it was all and they came at us with so we've done research on you're done you're on your demographic you have these many racers youth it was like wow I never thought about it that way you know as a tire company is not not a big company per se that most people would think of while we're our sister company is tell yo tires Nitto is a direct American spin-off with American distribution with that we're a company of roughly 45 employees here in Cypress California we're really a small niche group most people think that you know the Nitto marketing department is you know 30 people or so because we are very efficient we like to take the sniper shot approach within a market versus abroad throw it at the wall to see what sticks they came at us from a different angle truly appreciated what we had built and had no intention on trying to change it it afforded me at the time to go do bigger and Dumber stuff Tom BB and Griffin came along at the right time and was a perfect partner at the time middle came along at the right time and they've been the perfect partner through this next days of our life if you want to prove that your product can withstand off-road and your winch make it work and your lockers get you through some brutal terrain the place to test that has been the Hammers eye hammers your vehicle but it's also where all of the aftermarket products have been tested and proven to be the Duff products out there Johnson Valley is Darwin's playground push yourself go out into the middle of the desert see what happens climb those rocks look out for that mineshaft that's been there for over 100 years oh and did we mention there's bomb craters here so my first year down here it was nothing like this it was it was still big for being out here in the desert but it was not what it is today and now you get down here and you've got you know of course worn and and cheap guys down here from the factory I've seen a few floored guys it's a it's a big deal it's a really when it started it was a real grassroots thing there's some enthusiasts from Warren coming down you know we knew a lot of folks we're running our winches on their vehicles and so we came down to see how we could support them in over the years it's really grown into you know full-blown race support we were visiting the racers and one on one ensuring that their winches are set up correctly on their cars to ensure that when it comes time for them to use our product it's going to work 100% of time when you look at the evolution of a sport like king of the hammers and and again it's special to us because we had an opportunity to be there really from day one that sport warranted not just you know bigger things so it was always about making things stronger we have axle shafts where 40 spline is now the standard but to make them more competitive they're gun drill so they'll have a large hole down the center of the shaft because all your strength really comes on the outside for you engineers out there you know rightness areas to the factor 2 so which makes for a product that is maybe a little heavier than what we were doing but substantially stronger so axle splines have gone larger housings have gotten larger suspensions have changed so drivetrain components there now gear for not just solid axles but in the suspension so at our test lab back at the factory in Oregon you know we have vibration tables we have cold chambers hot chambers you know we test our winches all the way past all the remotes you know can go on a shaker table and simulate the environment that they have to survive in out here and then we bring it out here you know and we have much more confidence in our product and the racers do too because they've come up and toured our factories it's you know takes some of the stress off of their you know building the race car Johnson Valley has rocks that even Koh cars can't climb apparently they needed the dustiest muddiest driest hottest coldest place on the planet and they did well in finding it ARB didn't set to get into motorsport we started into four-wheel drive accessories specifically the airlock their line 30 years ago developing traction aids for off-roaders in Australia 200 live differential applications later we tested the prototypes for our d9 see Koh in Shannon Campbell's car the year following that we released general public motorsport was able to go to larger tires bigger motors heavier gbms and after long it needed a dip that could handle really really high output for that 35 spline shaft this is our Rd 249 C it's a latest addition to our racing series of air Locker locking differential products it's a first that anyone's taken a racing manually selectable traction Aid this far into the the realm of desert racing rock racing rock crawling we've had more than a year's worth the testing behind this product prior to launch they're very well I guess it's just the the grandeur of it everybody jumped on it as far as competitors they changed their cars they took rock crawlers and did the best they could to turn them into go fast cars and then it just snowballed after that people like me that like racing but don't race got sucked in to the same reasons incredible it represents the idea that people should take risks and try things no matter the cost you just have to go do it you have to try you have to take your idea and go do it if you don't you're not living your life like there's guys that live in a cube all day long you never take a risk and show up and they hate their miserable freaking job and they don't do anything and then there's people that were literally mortgage their house to build a car and go do some ridiculous race out in the desert that's nearly impossible just for the safe to do it it's I guess that's what King madness is for me it's just about taking the risk well it all come it's months and months and months of preparation and spending money and and then you're moving up to the starting line and your heart's just going you know and it's like this fight-or-flight thing and it has no purpose in the indiana racecar the focus gets down to not about all the details of the race in the car but it's about feeding the guy next to me in the first hundred feet that's all I'm concerned about just one thing at a time for making the whammer's is some kind of weird psychotic community that all beds together so they can beat the crap out of each other yet still find a way to make sure but it gets to the end together get to the end to win to finish whatever their goal is look something some people's goal is just getting there just to qualify some people's goal is to beat their buddy some people's goal is to get the first lap second left finish the race some people's goal or some win and uh me it was the right time and the way that Dave and Jeff approached it the first race year after the og race because they said hey we're gonna have this event and you can't come no spectators you can't come you tell somebody they can't they want it built off of that that race in that place and it's it's a special deal anybody who wants a different challenge in life can find a way to challenge themselves out here whether they are you know the best mechanic in their shop or they are the doctor the vet we have them all out here and the reality is is one of the things that's critical to king of the hammers and ultra4 is we want this to always be something that anybody can get involved in because it really did start off as guys taking their recreational vehicles and turning them into racecars we want there to always be an entry point for the family that wants to come up with a way to challenge themselves to come out here and make that happen I think the question of how did king of the hammers influence us it goes both ways that it changed Spyder tracks and how to accommodate you know the demands of what these ultra4 vehicles need but at the same time it changed us and what we do it's the the center of people's reason to do things it's the reason why everybody comes to your shop and sits in a shop like this and drinks with their friends and keeps building something it's the vehicle to get you to your goal it's whatever you make it out to be that's part of that culture we have it's it's whatever you want to be the payoff of ultra for racing I don't know if there is one it's like a drug it's this ninety ten ninety five five blood sweat and tears misery hard work constant uphill struggle of torture you put yourself through to get to this event for that that just the five percent and it all makes it worth it it's but I mean there's nothing quite like putting your helmet on locking the window net tighten the belts and peeling out on the track it's the idea of being able to compete against the best in the world and be the best in the world and it just it drives you like like nothing else I mean it's all that all that I think of when I'm not doing it and I don't know what I do if it all in a way it's just it's my life you got all the fast guys pushing and really testing the equipment and pushing it over the edge but at the same time the slowest guy the turtle that just keeps on chugging that keeps moving that knows what his car is doing what his parts are doing sometimes attrition wins the race or wins the race poor guy you know it's and that's what I've taught my kids over the years is I don't want you to go out there and race this race I want you to go out there and finish it and if you finish I tell them you'll be in the top ten Koh is special to me because of the people because of the technic the cars technology the campers the campfires to the weather there's so many odd components that are outside of the norm when you're standing on the lake bed they all fit together sometimes you don't see people all year but you'll see them on the lake bed and you shake hands and yeah you know you have a beer to camp fire you catch up on the year's activities life's life's pretty short don't get many of those opportunities and that's I always recommend to everybody come to Koh and have that beer be part of that group be part of that family come and enjoy it because suddenly you look back and you say wow yeah I've been coming there for eight years and I didn't really realize it but look at all the memories that I generated they eight years I mean it's it's really a reflection sometimes when you're standing there at Koh the brushing the teeth with silt the sand and it's blowing in your phone what the hell am I doing here that's the part you base its short-term memory the long-term memories and you go home and go back to your normal life in your office in your desk and you're reflecting back you're thinking you know what I had a great time that was an amazing place like I've met cool people saw a good race you know and that's the that's the Koh that to me is important Koh is is a runaway train you know it's coming and you're laying track the track ends and you're trying to lay track as fast as you can but that zero hour is going to come and that train is going to be here and then it's going to go where it was and that's kind of the feeling

Channel: HeavyMetalConcepts

Views: 451,323

Rating: 4.8906994 out of 5

Keywords: king of the hammers, ultra4, koh, origins, evolution, johnson valley, heavy metal concepts, heavymetalconcepts, ultra4 car

Id: -2c17UAQKSU

Length: 34min 5sec (2045 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 01 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/DrLeonardRockso]

It's so cool to watch and go "oh I was there when (insert clip)"!