King Of The Hammers So Cal Road Trip

     After living in Santa Cruz for the past month or so ive really grown to like it. Lots of tree's, living right near the beach, great food and easy access to San Francisco for night life and other adventures which I have never really explored before. That being said I still miss So. Cal and my friends down there and The King Of The Hammers Off-Road Race is next week so I load up the van with 10 days worth of supplies and hit the road south on the 101.
      I have always enjoyed the drive from Northern To Southern California as you get to see the full contrast of terrain the coast of CA has to offer. Leaving the Redwoods of Santa Cruz, through the vast open fields of central california and into the rocky desert of southern cal.

                    

     I arrive in Santa Barbara and set up camp up hwy 154 on the top of the mountain overlooking all of SB. One of my favorite spots to come when I lived here back in College. It had been a long day of driving so I just chilled in bed and watched a movie and admired the view before bed.

      Wake up in the morning and head to town to meet up with some friends for Super Bowl Sunday. End up at this amazing house in the Palisades of SB overlooking all of the bay. I am not really a big football fan and ended up watching maybe 2 minutes of the game but we all had a great time BBQing and partying outside. Went into the night with live music and good people. I have missed SB.

      Spent a couple more days in SB, beaching it and visiting old friends until it was time to head to Orange County to my friend Stevies ranch to hang out with him and go wheel his new rock crawler which he recently purchased from my friend Ryan. We spent the next few days tearing around the property exploring new trails and getting a feel for the truck. There were many late night missions into unknown territories which led to some good times and a few near accidents.
     I love going to the ranch because he has this whole world out there with little to no rules to do whatever and every type of terrain imaginable plus he is a really funny guy to hang out with.

    Alright and now the moment we have been waiting for, King Of The Hammers!

Stevie and Kevin load up their suburban to drive to the desert and camp, and by load up I mean Tons of food and beer and zero sleeping supplies. I warn them its going to be below freezing at night but Stevies mullet and camo duck hunting outfit will keep him safe he says, lol.

     It takes a few hours to get to Johnson Valley and we meet up with Jeff and Shane who show us to the Poly Goats Camp. KOH turns a empty desert into a full on city for this event and street are made along with stages, vendors and all the garages to work on the race trucks.

Park in camp and walk around Hammertown taking in the sights eventually heading to Backdoor after dark which is a basically strait up section of rock 10 feet high that is part of the race course, arguably the most challenging obstacle out here which is saying alot as Johnson Valley is known to be the most hardcore rock crawling in the state.

       About 100 people are gathered around the near vertical cliffs around backdoor, heckling drivers who cant make it up. Encouraging them to go full throttle and destroy their trucks, its quite the scene. Some make it and most do not. It takes the perfect amount of throttle, horsepower, tire size and wheel base to succeed. I tell Stevie that his truck he just bought has made it up backdoor and he barely believes me.

     One guy in a nicely built toyota lines up and I run down to talk to him telling him some of the techniques ive seen work to get up. He seems like a nice guy and we chat a bit and I give him a beer for encouragement. He hits it a few times getting half way up but just spinning at the top. He gives it one more try from the half way point full throttle and catches traction in the rear sending the front of the rig into the air and all the way over backwards onto the roof pretty violently. It all happened in the blink of a eye and his truck was totaled. Luckily he had a good roll cage which probably saved his life but still bent and smashed down. Here is a video of the rollover

    The Next Day is the actual race and we are up early to line up at the starting line. Two by two each truck costing over $100,000 each take off with 30 seconds in between each group.

     Once all of the trucks have left we take off in Rakers truck 6 deep to a viewing spot about 20 minutes into the desert, im not gonna say it was a safe ride there haha. We get there and the view is not that great and its hard to tell where the race course is because JV is so huge so we are back in the truck to Backdoor to see the action.

     That evening turned into quite the ridiculous affair with once again many glow sticks coming out and Parsons did some slow shutter photos by out camp with the crew which turned out awesome.

     After many drinks we all head into Hammertown and mingle with the huge crowd of racers and fans. I am pretty out of control at this point and end up doing the bernie which is a dance move inspired by the movie Weekend at Bernie's where you basically flair around like a dead body with your head back and no perception of where you are going. I do this accidentally into the security gaurds and fall on them. They ask if im ok and am drugs or something but I explain I was just doing the Bernie and there is no need to worry. Was quite a evening and im glad I made it back alive. Awesome trip with awesome people cant wait for next year! Now for the loooong drive back to Santa Cruz