DB_1
Elite Ranger
- Joined
- October 23, 2001
- Messages
- 3,765
- Reaction score
- 42
- City, State
- La Quinta, Ca.
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 97 SC Ranger xlt
If you follow rockcrawling at all you've probably heard of a relatively new off road race called the King of the Hammers or KOH. It combines some hardcore rockcrawling trails with some go fast Baja 1000 type terrain in between. Racers are sent off 2 at a time at timed intervals and must stop at checkpoints along the course.
Wednesday: I pull in late afternoon just a few minutes behind (Rockranger) Matt and Tracy and her parents and the winds are kicking up. Overnight the winds really picked up and sand found it's way into our tents. Luckily my tent was still standing next morning.
Thursday: STILL windy, we head over to the the last chance qualifier being held on a trail called Back Door. I believe there were 10 spots up for grabs and those 10 rigs would move on to the big race on Friday. The winds still remained through the qualifier but Matt, Tracy and I braved through it all. Tracy's parents decided to take shelter in the jeep, it was a bit much for them especially after last nights brutal winds. It was after the LCQ Matt & co. decided to head back home to get some relief from the never ending winds. I know Matt really wanted to stay but he was in the minority.
Friday: Raceday! Spent yet another night dealing with the winds but they finally died off in the morning...what a relief. I head over to the starting line and excitement is in the air with all the buggies lined up and doing their final prep. First we get the national anthem sung then the grand marshall Walker Evans get the honor of saying those oh so famous words "gentlemen, start your engines!" I grab a spot a ways down from the start line to get some video of them flying over the first jump.
My game plan was to hit a few different spots along the course, I'd get too bored waiting for buggies to come by if I stayed in one spot all day.
After watching some of the start of the race, I head out towards the first pit stop and hang out for a bit and watched a few cars pull in. That wasn't overly exciting so I make my way to the Back Door trail where the LCQ was held and there was quite a crowd hanging out. It's a good trail for spectating but I was there most of thursday so I didn't stay long.
My next plan of attack was to head back to the finish line and watch some cars come in but I wanted to watch some trail action so I headed across the lakebed and found a couple good trails to watch the action. First trail I came to was Jackhammer which they were coming down and next canyon over was Sledgehammer which they went up. The Sledgehammer trail had by far the most exciting action of all the spots I was at during the day.
I managed to shoot quite a bit of video and I'm trying to bunch a lot of it together but the files end up being too large for YouTube.
I'll have to figure something out there. I took a few pics but nothing real exciting.
Pirate 4x4 has some real good picture galleries:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/gallery/main.php
Wednesday: I pull in late afternoon just a few minutes behind (Rockranger) Matt and Tracy and her parents and the winds are kicking up. Overnight the winds really picked up and sand found it's way into our tents. Luckily my tent was still standing next morning.
Thursday: STILL windy, we head over to the the last chance qualifier being held on a trail called Back Door. I believe there were 10 spots up for grabs and those 10 rigs would move on to the big race on Friday. The winds still remained through the qualifier but Matt, Tracy and I braved through it all. Tracy's parents decided to take shelter in the jeep, it was a bit much for them especially after last nights brutal winds. It was after the LCQ Matt & co. decided to head back home to get some relief from the never ending winds. I know Matt really wanted to stay but he was in the minority.
Friday: Raceday! Spent yet another night dealing with the winds but they finally died off in the morning...what a relief. I head over to the starting line and excitement is in the air with all the buggies lined up and doing their final prep. First we get the national anthem sung then the grand marshall Walker Evans get the honor of saying those oh so famous words "gentlemen, start your engines!" I grab a spot a ways down from the start line to get some video of them flying over the first jump.
My game plan was to hit a few different spots along the course, I'd get too bored waiting for buggies to come by if I stayed in one spot all day.
After watching some of the start of the race, I head out towards the first pit stop and hang out for a bit and watched a few cars pull in. That wasn't overly exciting so I make my way to the Back Door trail where the LCQ was held and there was quite a crowd hanging out. It's a good trail for spectating but I was there most of thursday so I didn't stay long.
My next plan of attack was to head back to the finish line and watch some cars come in but I wanted to watch some trail action so I headed across the lakebed and found a couple good trails to watch the action. First trail I came to was Jackhammer which they were coming down and next canyon over was Sledgehammer which they went up. The Sledgehammer trail had by far the most exciting action of all the spots I was at during the day.
I managed to shoot quite a bit of video and I'm trying to bunch a lot of it together but the files end up being too large for YouTube.
I'll have to figure something out there. I took a few pics but nothing real exciting.
Pirate 4x4 has some real good picture galleries:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/gallery/main.php
