crazywatson
#13 - UTVUnderground Approved
Last time I looked he was moving again but way behind. I quite watching because there was no coverage.
2015 King Of The Hammers UTV race
- Thread starter facteryfmf
- Start date
JoeyD23
#utvunderground
Congrats to the now 6 time King, Mitch Guthrie & Mitch Guthrie Jr!! Check out the full results, photos and story by clicking the image or link: http://www.utvunderground.com/2015-king-of-the-hammers-24327.html
Huge kudos to Mitch...again. After battling with him the entire race, and barely beating him in 2011 with Brandon, and I can say he is not only a fantastic driver that knows the course very well, but he is an absolute class act and amazing sportsmen! Congrats to the King!!!
facteryfmf
Looking For a Few Good Men - UTVUnderground Approv
You're the real king
crazywatson
#13 - UTVUnderground Approved
The Kawasaki was 1st in its class. He was the 2nd finisher. In pro it was a Popo 1k Wildcat Trail then a 900 S
My name is Jon, and I have a KOH addiction. I have a long history racing UTVs at King of the Hammers, and it has always been a love-hate relationship. Since 2009, I have either driven or co-dogged for this race. All, but last year in one of my vehicles. The idea of building the perfect UTV for the race is always the candy that gets me started. Then about a month before the race, the countless hours of preparation and stress of letting someone down tests my sanity. Every year I say that I will never do this again, then somehow the lure of building something better triggers something in my brain and I cannot help myself. There must be a twelve step program to help me quit, but I haven't figured it out yet. All those people I beg to help me stop, let me jump right into the slippery slope the following year. They all must enjoy seeing me suffer.
I got behind the wheel of the new Polaris RZR S 900 at the press intro in September and was impressed with the new RZR. With the rear a-arm design, I knew it would be a solid rock crawler. But compared to a RZR XP 1000, it has 30+ less horsepower, 11-inch shorter wheelbase and 4-5 inches less wheel travel. I thought it would be challenging to race a RZR S 900 knowing that I wouldn't have the pressure on me to win the race. Just getting it across the finish line against more capable vehicles would be a great accomplishment.
I checked with Bill Schueler over at Jagged X to see what he thought about supporting two cars at #KOH2015 and he they were up to the task. The folks at Polaris weren't quite as easy to convince. Why wouldn't I want to race a RZR XP 1000 as it is much more well suited for conquering desert and rocks? I pitched the marketing angle and they finally agreed. It was game on!
My co-dog for the race was Tommy Scranton. He not only races a RZR in different short course series, but is also a fabricator at IMG Motorsports and knows how to turn a wrench on a UTV. While not an experienced rock crawler, he fit the bill for youth, lightweight and RZR experience. We did make one trip to Johnson Valley to pre-run some of the trails over two days, but other than that, we had no wheeling experience together.
Somewhere along the line, I decided finishing the race wouldn't be exciting enough (more crack for my addiction) and decided to make two different side bets for $100 each. The first was against Dean Bulloch. He is an Arctic Cat dealer out of Cedar City (D&P Performance) and is racing a Wildcat Sport. Since the RZR S 900 and Wildcat Sport are new 60-inch units for 2015 so we figured it would be fun to have a race within a race - Arctic Cat vs. Polaris and Bulloch vs. Crowley. The second was against BC Vaught. He was going to race an XP 1000 and I really figured it would be an easy $100 in my pocket since he probably wouldn't even show up!
End of January came quickly, and we hit Johnson Valley on Friday night before the race. The course was announced on Thursday, and at first glance it looked longer but the tough rock sections looked about the same. Boy was I wrong. We were still going up Aftershock, up Hwy 19/20, up Chocolate Thunder, up Wrecking Ball, but now we also had to go down Sledgehammer and up Jackhammer! Jackhammer has a tough gatekeeper obstacle that probably 80% of the the big Ultra4 cars would have to winch up. For UTVs, it meant we would have to winch at least two if not three times. The length of the race was also increased to 127 miles and a new trail called Crowbar was added along with miles of ugly whoops that we would have to tackle twice.
Full Race Recap at: #1965 Recap of the 2015 King of the Hammers UTV Race
I saw your car in inspection Tuesday. I was very impressed !! I could tell it could win there was only 4 other cars that I thought were good enough to win . Remember that's just my opinion. Your car was bad azz just the right mods and not a factory ride no super special stuff
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desertwheeler
Extra Crispy
Congrats Jon! I'm curious how did you like the kahuna's compared to the other tires you have raced in KOH?
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desertwheeler
Extra Crispy
Did the nut come off what happened there?
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