King of the Hammers Nails Kick-Off Race

Jason R. Sakurai
by Jason R. Sakurai

King of the Hammers returned to Johnson Valley, California for a week of racing, featuring the largest desert racing purse: $270,000. That was doled out to winners in T1, T2, B1, B2, B3, and Class 11 vehicles.

T1, the unlimited desert racing truck class, was won by Bryce Menzies, piloting the Mason Motorsports 4WD truck. Menzies qualified first for Sunday’s Toyo Desert Challenge, leading from flag-to-flag in his Red Bull/Toyo Tires machine, netting $50,00o for his efforts. Cameron Steele finished second, only 14 seconds ahead of Kyle Jergensen.

Running sealed crate engines with horsepower limitations, the top finishers in T2 still beat the B1 buggies, due to their increased rear-wheel travel. Dustin Grabowski outran Pierce Herbst and Brad Lovell to take home $10,000 and the class win.

B1s are unlimited class buggies, B2 buggies use rear-mounted, four-cylinder Ecotec spec engines, and B3 buggies are UTVs such as Can-Am Maverick X3s. Cody Parkhouse was the fast qualifier in B1, but mechanical issues sidelined him, allowing Ray Griffith to take the victory in B1, and the $10,000 check. Casey Currie finished second, and Adam Lunn rounded out the B1 podium, sharing driving duties with RJ Anderson in his new Racer Engineering buggy.

There exists a B2 versus B3 grudge match, stemming from the UTVs starting behind the B2 buggies even if they qualify faster. Four of the top five qualifiers were B2 buggies, which foretold the outcome of the race-within-the-race, with only seven of the 39 entries finishing prior to the eight-hour cutoff time. While the desert race doesn’t use the boulders found in the Hammers trails, there were enough obstacles to provide an advantage to the B2s, with their taller tires and additional shocks. The 4WD capabilities of B3s usually give them the nod where there’s limited traction, but this wasn’t the case after heavy rains the week prior washed away the silt along the Johnson Valley OHV Area’s 304-mile course.

First across the finish line were three single-seat B2 cars, with Wheeler Morgan taking home the victory and $60,000, $50,00o of which was for the overall win. Kyle Cheney was the top B3 finisher in a Can-Am Maverick X3, 45 minutes behind Morgan, winning $10,000 as the top B3.

The Desert Challenge began a week of competition followed by the King of the Motos on Tuesday, the UTV King of the Hammers on Thursday, the Every Man Challenge on Friday, and culminating with the King of the Hammers on Saturday, February 6th, pitting unlimited 4WD vehicles against some of the most challenging terrain to be found anywhere.

[Images: King of the Hammers]

Jason R. Sakurai
Jason R. Sakurai

With a father who owned a dealership, I literally grew up in the business. After college, I worked for GM, Nissan and Mazda, writing articles for automotive enthusiast magazines as a side gig. I discovered you could make a living selling ad space at Four Wheeler magazine, before I moved on to selling TV for the National Hot Rod Association. After that, I started Roadhouse, a marketing, advertising and PR firm dedicated to the automotive, outdoor/apparel, and entertainment industries. Through the years, I continued writing, shooting, and editing. It keep things interesting.

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  • DedBull DedBull on Feb 01, 2021

    What is Class 11? Dies that mean "stock" VW beetle like SCORE? Did anyone participate?

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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