King Of The Hammers 09 - Run, Fun, Run!

The first 23 miles are mostly desert racing, and we quickly decided that the Fun Buggy needs more shock tuning. The Fox shocks and air bumps were doing the best they could, but stay tuned for a "how to tune your coilover shocks" story, as the Fun Buggy just wasn't fast enough in the rough stuff. By mile 11 I glanced in the rearview mirror just in time to see the spare fall out the back of the car; time to stop and get out again.

Near race mile 19 I had everything triple-tied down (except my small hammer, which had jumped out somewhere before race mile 11, the smashed amber rear light, the busted radio, and the GPS antennaes), and I was hot on the tail of car No. 96 when we both came to a steep climb. The hillclimb had two options: a technical rockcrawling climb and a high-horsepower sandy climb. The technical climb was a traffic jam of buggies, so we went over to the sand climb with No. 96 in front of me. I stopped and waited for him to make the climb. After two tries he backed up for a good run. I started honking my horn as he was lining up, and when he looked my way I took off, drove around him, and throttled up the climb with no problems. At that moment we were cheering in the Fun Buggy! We really felt like a race team and had the power to pass people; this was starting to be an awesome battle.

We're Up, We're Down
When your head's in the clouds, you don't always notice the big rocks ahead. I quickly smacked a tire hard going a bit too fast, and for some reason the steering wheel was half a turn off-center. An eventual inspection revealed that I had bent the heat-treated chromoly front track bar.

At race mile 23 there was a checkpoint where the promoter records the number of each vehicle, and then you can pit if you need fuel, parts, a cup of coffee, or whatever. I decided that a pit stop would be prudent to check over the car.

Pit stops are organized chaos. One person stands in front of the buggy and watches everything and two people refuel while a third has a fire extinguisher at the ready, another gives food or drink to the driver and copilot, and a couple others check the car for damage. My team of friends was awesome! I can't thank them enough, as they made sure everything was in tip-top shape (or slightly banged up and bent but good enough) and quickly had us back on the course.

By now we were in a rhythm. The buggy seemed happy, Dave had found some groovy tunes to listen to, and I was sure that scouts from the major racing teams (SCORE, NASCAR, Indy Car, Formula One) were scoping me out along the course, considering me for their next superstar rookie driver.

Eventually the wide-open desert racing was closing up and we were headed to some rocky canyons. I was excited to finally get where the Fun Buggy should shine. When we caught up to the main pack of racers and we couldn't use the standard lines, I soon figured out that these trails, which should have been no problem, were a bit more complicated. In fact we weren't even into the second rock trail when we had to winch up something that should have been easy because I couldn't get the buggy to climb. I quickly discovered I only had three-wheel drive, as one of the rear drive slugs had come loose and wouldn't transfer power to the wheel. But I was getting pretty good with the rear steer and was able to weave through big boulders and wounded rigs.

Speaking of wounded rigs, we saw everything from broken axles to buggies that had caught on fire and burnt to the ground. But even when we came across broken wheelers they always rooted us on or gave us spotting tips. This brings up a weird aspect of the King of the Hammers race: Since you are not allowed outside help, it wasn't unusual to see racers helping other racers. Of course this wasn't the case with everyone, but we can see future races being run by teams of buggies carrying spare parts for each other, or a sportsmanship award for the team voted most helpful by the other racers.

The End
At around race mile 38 we came to a rocky obstacle with a sandy hillclimb bypass, but unfortunately there was a broken buggy in the run up to the climb so we weaved around him but couldn't get a good hole shot at the loose climb. Then I pointed the buggy back toward the rocks, but the three-wheel drive wasn't going to get us up that way, so I returned to the hill climb for another shot. I backed up the opposite hill for as much of a run as possible, but three-quarters of the way up the sandy climb at full throttle there was a small pop! and the tires stopped spinning. I checked all the shifters and levers, and the engine still ran, but it was an NGS (No Go Situation).

I looked at Dave and wracked my brain for a solution. The only possible explanation: I had broken the output shaft on the transmission. We were dead in the desert. (After getting home and tearing it apart I found that my deduction had been correct. A stronger transmission is in the works.) As we rolled slowly back to the bottom of the hill I knew our race was over, but I was still smiling like a silly clown. I was having the best day of wheeling in a long time.

It took a few more hours to get out of the trail and back to our main camp, and in that time I got to use my onboard Premier Power welder to fix the other guy's broken buggy at the bottom of that sandy climb, and my rear driveshaft U-joint to get some other racers down the trail. By then my pit crew showed up and drug the busted Fun Buggy back to the trailer, and we finally busted into that ARB fridge freezer for a few celebratory beverages.

I'm not sure I'll try again next year, but if you think you can afford it you should definitely give it a try because, even making it less than half-way, I had a great time.

In the end Jason Schere was crowned the new King of the Hammers, and only a third of the field finished the race before the sun set. I'd like to congratulate them and all the racers on their hard work.

Monday after the race I called my mom and dad and told them to sell the farm because I'm going to need a lot more money for my desert rock racing career. Team Fun Buggy needs a prerunner, chase trucks, a helicopter, a few semis full of spare parts, and a bigger stereo system in the Fun Buggy for Dave.