Daryl,
I believe your thinking is flawed....and here is why.
First off...Loren Healy is an ex-King who is building a Bad Ass IF$ car. He is an Ultra4 racer, so I am sure he considers it a play toy and will always do so. He is a House Hold name in the Rockcrawling world.
Randy Rodd has proven himself as a builder who can build 4400 cars that can not only last, but can win. His place is way to small to focus on anything but rockcralwers, and he would be a fool to even consider it at this moment.
Its one thing dropping 25-30k on a race car, it is THAT SECOND half that limits tons of people!
Not only that, maintaining that car that sold for less than your UTV is another story.
The UTV market is blowing up....and will continue to. 2/3 of the KOH field of 4400 cars are not contenders.....I know, because I was among that group for long time. Eventually, those guys will all cross over to UTV's....but for now, they are living the dream at the Baddest A$$ race on the planet, especially if you are a rock guy.
I can not believe how fun these things are to race and how cheap they are. And all of those guys will too when they get sick of dropping tens-of thousands. I can just about by 4 brand new Bighorns for what one BFG KRT-B costs!! 300m axle shafts-cheaper, lockers-none, re-gear differtials-cant, etc, etc, etc. Everything about these is cheaper, and the fun level is there as well. Easy to prep and maintain as well. All of this is very inviting to a bunch of KOH guys.
I agree, we are the outcasts out there (King of the Outcasts!!), but the numbers have increased each year, and eventually you will have to be quailifed to enter. I am not saying make it the same difficulty and length as the main event, but dont make it easier either.
For comparison, I raced RCQ in 2009 and 11 finished out of 32, 2010, 16 out of 30 finished and the course was harder. From the begining of Ultra4 the finish rate has increased, and with the UTV's the same thing will happen.
Wide Open Design (Ultra4 racer and builder) has started to build UTV, and more and more will too.
My lap times at Dirt Riot in my wheezy 693 was only about 30 senocds off of the 4400 cars when they qualified (no rocks, just 4 miles)...the course was tight, so that helped!
King of the Hammers has turned into how much I can spend versus you.....but what makes it bad ass, is a low-budget race car can still pull a good finsh.
Its the rocks man, the rocks. They change everything.
Rob