2011 King Of Hammers
March 14th, 2011 | News | caseyKing of the Hammers is a one week one shot race. Casey races both in the UTV and the Main race on Thursday and Friday.
Monday РWe arrived to the Hammers for a day of Rock crawling with my Uncle John. This was the first time for me to crawl on the 37” General Tires and on the King coil over suspension that we installed onto the Campbell rig. The day went almost perfect. We did a bunch of trails and I was really getting comfortable with the new set up. As we were finishing up for the day we raced across the desert and as soon as we got back to camp we had a fuel line inside the gas tank crack and it made the fuel pressure drop and loose power. We got the line fixed right away in camp and everything was good. 
I made a call into my guys at the shop to check on my UTV and they said the Teryx was done but when they started it up the water drained from the radiator into the oil so they got it loaded up for the engine builder and Kawasaki to look at it at the Hammers. 
Tuesday – We woke up early for a full day of Testing with King Shock. I knew the rig worked good in the rocks but it was time to get it dialed in for the desert. We must of pulled the shocks of 5 or 6 times and it kept getting faster and faster. We were running Kings new internal bypass shock that had never been raced on before. By the end of the day we felt that we were pretty close to a final set up and ready to qualify on Wednesday morning.
My dad showed up late Monday night with my Teryx and first thing Tuesday morning we dropped my Teryx off with Kawasaki to see if they could get it fixed and they worked hard on getting it up and running.
Wednesday – 5 am wake up call for qualifying. We were the 6th person off the line for qualifying. We had to go up Back Door and down Trap Door, two very difficult trails with another couple miles of whooped out desert, and we had a strategic plan to make it happen. Only 20 qualifiers would make it into the main event on Friday and there was over 70 qualifiers competing for every spot. We decided to have Nick Campbell go with me on Qualifying because he is a very good spotter and good at running the winch. When the Green Flag dropped we got after it, driving at a good pace we got to Back Door and without even trying we pulled out the winch got right up the waterfall and away I went, leaving Nick there to save time. I raced through the desert and came to Trap Door, taking my time I crept down the waterfall and around the big rock then took off again through the desert. Finishing in 13 minutes and 54 seconds we were definitely in the main event. After the 70 competitors went off we finished 13th overall for qualifying putting me in the 69th starting position for the Main Race.
When we finished with qualifying my guys got the word that the Teryx was not fixable and we were going to have to do a motor swap. They worked on the motor all day and at midnight we had the Teryx ready to race. We ran out to the desert and did some little adjustments to it and put it away for the night. There was nothing else we could do since we were racing it at 5am Thursday Morning.
Thursday Р 5am Wake up call for UTV  line up. We started last since we didnt know if we were going to be racing. When the Green flag dropped we were planning on going as fast as a stock motor would go through the desert then really pushing it through the rocks. About 3 miles into the race we had caught the vehicles in front of us and on the first steep climb the Teryx died. We sat there for over an hour working on everything we could test. We ended up pushing down the hill when we noticed that the fuel cell breather filled with Gas making the tank collapse and the fuel pump stop. We have had this Teryx out many times and have never seen this issue so it was nothing new that we tried, just bad luck.  After we got it running we charged through the course getting valuable pre run notes for The big race on Friday and having a great time. When we got to Elvis there were UTVs stuck everywhere, and since we were so far down we tried and helped everyone we could. When we got near the middle of Elvis I must of hit a rock with the lower a arm breaking the lower circlip off that holds the lower ball joint on.  We got a ratchet strap and wrapped it around the 2 arms holding the suspension together. We made it through Elvis no problem then down Aftershock no problem and still finished 7th with over an hour of down time.  We had a purpose built Kawasaki Teryx that was very capable of winning, we just didnt have luck on our side. Now that we have a solid package we will go out for lots of testing and come back next year to battle up front. 
After the UTV race we tested the Crawler two more times making some slight suspension adjustments and then got it in line for Tech. My guys got the Crawler through tech and I went to the Drivers meeting. By the time everything was finished up and ready to race it was midnight again. 
Friday Р430 am wake up call. Crawler had to be in line early. I had my Uncle ride with me this year in the Hammers so he could experinece the race and I could have a co driver that is very knowledgeable in the rocks. When the green flag took off we were 69th and everything was going good. We made it though the first couple of rock sections no problem and when we arrived at Outer Limits I nailed a rock so hard and flattened the driverside front tire. I drove a 1/4 way up Outer Limits before the chaos begun. A vehicle had rolled over and stopped the whole field. We had worked our way to the top 30.  Once the vehicle was moved we made it up Outer Limits no problem then fixed the tire and charged on. Passing 20 more vehicles we had made it into the top 10 at mile marker 52, 6 miles before Main pit. Then the day went south. We had a fuel problem, we worked for 25 minutes trying to get it fired up and once it did we charged to the main pit where they tried everything to get it fixed. For the first 20 miles of the course we had no issues, moving forward and getting in the groove everything was going good again, then half way up Outer Limits the gas problem came back. at around 1pm was the first time we got out to work on the crawler and wasnt the last. We worked on the car every 2 minutes for the rest of the day and night. When I pulled into the halfway pit the sun just went down, I had no lights and the crawler wasnt running. In my mind I thought the day was over since we had no lights but my guys were way ahead of me. As I pulled in they didnt say anything about quitting, they just put there heads down and tried everything they could to get the crawler to run. We worked over an hour and tried everything we could to make it have fuel pressure. They also borrowed some small lights from other teams and we mounted them up to give me lights. When we thought we had it fixed we threw some jackets on and took off. Going down Sunbonnet Pass we had no issues and we started across the desert to After Shock when it came back. It started dying again. My Uncle started noticing that it was getting air in the injectors so all we had to do is wait 30 seconds refire and take off. We drove really slow and it would die only every 2 minutes or so. We had 1 hour to make it to the finish and we werent even to the top of Aftershock. When we got to the top of Aftershock the crawler was running for only 30 seconds before shutting down and having to be restarted. I sat at the top of Aftershock walking around debating what to do, My Uncle didnt want to sleep in the desert and either did I, but I wanted to finish so bad. I called my Dad and David on the phone and asked for there opinion, they said it was up to me and as soon as I hung up I knew they would come get me if I was stuck so we went for it. I buckled back in and got down Aftershock only restarting the crawler every 200 yards. When we got to mile marker 50 we had 20 minutes and my Uncle told me that at our rate we would never finish. So we started fixing the issue before it would happen. I would drive as fast as I could bouncing off the bumpstops and rev limiter for 1 mile then at speed, not even slowing down I would shut the crawler off for 20 seconds then refire and keep going. We did that for the last 10 miles and made it to the finish line at 9:59 and 40 seconds. Finishing the King of The Hammers as the 47th Finisher. It was a tough day for us, we had a great vehicle and everything was going awesome, we had an issue that we still dont understand and it really showed how strong our team is. My team worked very hard all day and My Uncle put up with me all day for a finish at the “King of the Hammers”. I will be back next year ready to do it all over again. 
This event brought a lot of my Sponsors, Family and Friends out. I cant thank everyone enough. 
Special Thanks to : Dad, Mom, Cody, Uncle John, Uncle Charlie, David, Louis, Oren, Jason, Tony, Gerald(Saavy Off Road), Doug, Ramses, Reid, Grandpa, and Grandma, and everyone I forgot as I am writing this.
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