Why cover King of the Hammers? Many of us like running trails at an accelerated pace, seeing how much ground we can cover in an afternoon. King of the Hammers takes that line of thinking and ramps it into the stratosphere.
Each Hammer trail is brutal all by itself, and there's no shortage of tales about the difficulty involved in running just one Hammer trail in a day. Often, that day runs into overtime as the sun sets and broken rigs must be repaired in order to complete the trail.
The 2010 iteration of King of the Hammers included every well-known Hammer trail plus a few new ones. Need some names? Boulderdash and Spooner's are two. We checked out both of them and while they're not as famous as Clawhammer and Sledgehammer, they're just as brutal.
It's not just a trail run through extreme rock-crawling trails. King of the Hammers includes the high-speed desert sections that connect the crawling trails. Successful KOH teams needed skills and machinery capable of both high- and low-speed terrain.
Add it all up, and you've got 100 miles of brutality. One competitor claimed KOH is tougher than the Baja 1000. True? Maybe. The two races present different types of challenges to their competitors, so it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison. Terrain-wise, KOH is peerless. Logistics and distance are tougher in Baja.
There are similarities between KOH and the Baja "mil." Just like Baja, King of the Hammers is a fickle beast. Polished driving skills and premium equipment don't guarantee a win. You'll need a bit of luck as well. This year, Loren Healey of Farmington, New Mexico, had the right combination required for the victory. Healey and his co-driver, Randy Rodd, completed the course in 6 hours, 57 minutes, and 53 seconds. Counting the time down to the second is significant here, because Healey's time was a mere 28 seconds faster than the second-place time of Brad Lovell. Congrats!
An overnight city sprang up...
An overnight city sprang up on Means dry lake. City planners designated the race course, main pit area, and a vendor's row. Everything else was urban sprawl.
Yeah, that's clear as mud!...
Yeah, that's clear as mud! Even if you understood the course markers (we didn't), navigation was still tough at KOH. Just like in Baja, prerunning and GPS were critical components of a successful race.
KOH is tough to photograph....
KOH is tough to photograph. There's so much going on at so many different locations it's impossible to cover it all without an army. We had to cherry-pick. We hung out at the entrance to Boulderdash before the first racers came through. Number 554, Rick Mooneyham, was the first one to show up. Mooneyham finished fourth overall.
After Mooneyham, last year's...
After Mooneyham, last year's winner Jason Scherer soon arrived. We didn't think we'd see him again until the finish line, but Boulderdash had other plans for number 76.
A few hundred yards into Boulderdash,...
A few hundred yards into Boulderdash, the rear wishbone on Scherer's three-link called it quits. The sway bar links were collateral damage when the wishbone died. This breakage put Jason in a tough situation, as the KOH rules are very strict about how spare parts and tools can be obtained. In keeping with the rules, Scherer's co-driver completed a tough hike to the nearest pit for the needed parts.
With a functional wishbone...
With a functional wishbone in place on his buggy, Scherer made his way around the rest of the course. We found his rig parked at the finish line, having completed KOH fast enough for 18th place. Relevant side comment: Jason Scherer is a class act. Even while broken down on the trail, he was cordial, professional, and kept his cool. Kudos, sir.
Here's the checkpoint before...
Here's the checkpoint before the madness of Spooner's. The checkpoint was staffed by volunteers who worked a 12-hour day keeping track of times and numbers as the racers drove in.
While there weren't any massive...
While there weren't any massive waterfalls at Spooner's, there were tight squeezes and boulders aplenty. Here's Brad Lovell en route to first runner-up.
Loren Healey showed up to...
Loren Healey showed up to KOH fairly anonymous and went home completely famous. Healey hails from the rock-crawling hotbed in Farmington, New Mexico, a place that clearly honed his skills for the Hammers. Loren had to run the Last Chance Qualifier to earn his spot on the starting line. Before the race, names like Campbell, Currie, Scherer, Lovell, Jordan, and Bulloch were the ones predicted to win. With the right combination of skill, equipment, and luck, Healey's name is now indelibly carved into the rock-crawling world's proverbial wall of fame.