HAMMERTOWN, Calif. – Freezing temperatures, thick and low-hanging fog, and a heavy haze of dust hovered over Johnson Valley as the sun rose to reveal Hammertown in all its frantic glory on day one of the Toyo Tires Desert Challenge presented by Monster Energy.
Those not intimately familiar with the Mojave Desert of Southern California may be unable to imagine the desert a cold place, but as Polaris UTV racer Wayne Matlock would say later in the day about his wife Kristin’s on-track troubles, “We use a special fluid in the engine that froze solid the night before the race. We tried to defrost it but couldn’t free it up before she had to start. Her engine overheated and blew a head gasket.”
The Toyo Tires Desert Challenge for Limited Buggies is the official starting event of the Progressive King of the Hammers Week Powered by OPTIMA Batteries held in the legendary 96,000-acre Johnson Valley off-road playground. Now in its fourth year as a part of the King of the Hammers week of desert and rock racing, the Desert Challenge is a two-day event that has grown by leaps and bounds to accommodate the continued growth in the vehicle classes that have been added to the ever-expanding venue.
RELATED: SPEED SPORT To Present LIVE From Coverage Of 2022 King Of The Hammers
What began as a single-day, invite-only race for unlimited trucks (T1) has blown up to include an opening day featuring Class 10, Class 16, Class 12, Class 5 Unlimited, stock and modified UTVs with naturally aspirated and turbo engines, and TrophyLite spec trucks powered by sealed EcoTech engines. They all ran the same course at the same time, competing against each other for class victories as well as for the overall race win.
The racing format for the Desert Challenge is not like your usual desert off-road race. The determination of starting order is held the morning of the race, as opposed to a day (or days) before the event. President of Ultra4 Racing and mastermind of the King of the Hammers, Dave Cole, came up with the idea to make things a bit more interesting and competitive.
Teams competed in what’s referred to as a “prologue” of a 33-mile loop section of the 201-mile overall racecourse to determine starting order and had only a matter of minutes to get ready for the main race. In the past, regardless of their qualifying time, UTVs started behind the buggies. This year, prologue results dictated overall starting order. In addition, a competitor’s prologue time would be added to their overall race elapsed time.
Chase Warren scored the best prologue time, with fellow Class 10 competitor Matt Winslow second on the grid. Mitch Guthrie Jr. nailed the third start spot in his B2 class, new Polaris RZR Pro R4 AWD UTV. Fourth fastest was Ezra Ebberts in another Class 10 car. Peter Hajas started fifth off the line for Day 1 of the Desert Challenge. Now a four-wheel-drive UTV would start with only two buggies in between it and an overall win in the day’s race.
The race course was tough. Wayne Matlock said, “Dave (Cole) threw a little bit of everything at us with this race course.”
Seventh-place overall finisher Ezra Ebberts (Class 10 #1077 with an ET of 4:37:06:968) called it, “Gnarly, there’s no other way to put it.”
Days of open pre-running by buggies, trucks, and UTVs had torn it up, but a rough and tumble race course was not the only hazard to contend with.
The top three overall finishers were Chase Warren (No. 1088 Class 10), Mitch Guthrie Jr. (No. 2911 Polaris UTV “B2”), and Brady Wisdom (No. 1032 Class 10). Austin Weiland (No. 2954 UTV Pro) was 10th overall and first in UTV Pro. Travis Chase (No. 5095) scored big with an 11th overall and first in Class 5 Unlimited. Cameron Steel (No. 16) was 17th overall and first in TrophyLite trucks driving a Ford Ranger pickup. Oscar Indreland came in 28th overall for a first in UTV Stock Turbo, and 48th overall of the 64 vehicles that finished the race.
RELATED: Watch the SPEED SPORT LIVE From The King Of The Hammers Pre-Show Wednesday Evening
However, before many had even finished a lap, there was carnage on course. Starting side-by-side, two at a time, there were some near incidents just getting out of the short course start section and on onto the real racecourse. Once on the course, the perils began to multiply. Rolled, broken, and stuck cars were not an uncommon sight.
Mitch Guthrie Jr. (No. 2911) with his dad Mitch Sr. (a multi-year winner in the KOH UTV races going back as far back as 2008) as co-driver, took second place overall and first UTV Pro.
“Right off the start we had a buggy stuck on the hill and had to get around him. It held up awesome, but man, that course was brutal, and every single lap was getting worse and worse,” Mitch Guthrie Jr. said.
Warren was on cloud nine when he reached the podium after the race.
“We came across a problem coming right out of Hammertown,” Warren said. “A couple of cars got stuck on Heartbreak Hill. There were two cars flipped over and stuck at the top of Heartbreak Hill. We had to take the bypass.”
Warren kept his cool and made it out.
“It was smooth going from there,” Warren explained. “We were given the opportunity to get out here and do this, and it was just an amazing race.”
