By Robb Pritchard
Because of its massive scope and impact it’s always seemed incredible that the King of the Hammers is only so few years old. But in 2017 it finally entered its second decade and did so as biggest off-road race in the world. With over 500 teams entered for the week-long dusty rock-fest extravaganza, that saw the insane Backdoor Shootout, Motos, ATVs and lower classes all racing, it is now bigger than the Baja 1000, bigger than the Dakar… And yet it still goes from strength to strength, expanding exponentially year on year with those making ever more innovative technological advancements to better tackle the huge rock crawls as well as plenty of people wanting to enter to smash their cars and hopes on the hardest course in the world of motorsport. But despite all that is new on the lakebed it was the old guard that starred…
The high octane qualifying sessions were the usual two days of chaos and carnage as everyone pressed to get a good grid position and as usual the cream of the 120 car field for the main race came to the top. Pole was taken by 2009 winner Jason Scherer with two-time winner and current champion Eric Miller ready for the flag-off right next to him. Blasting off together from Hammertown at 8am sharp they went two-by-two every thirty seconds and so big was field that it took half an hour for them all to get off the line into the 180 mile race.
The only regular Ultra4 Europe drive to enter the mother event was Axel Burmann but the bad luck of one of the unluckiest drivers continued as an engine problem persisted despite four different tuners trying to fix it. On Thursday night, with no seat time and the issue still not resolved he decided not to take the car out into a certain retirement.
Tom Wayes, always demon fast took no time in dispatching those in front and was tussling with Miller when Loren Healy flew passed both of them to take the lead in his Red Dragon. This car won every Ultra4 event Healy entered it in last year on his way to becoming the Ultra4 Series champion, so he had very high hopes for a win here and be the first triple winner. It wasn’t to be though. Halfway around the first lap the engine blew and the spilled oil caught fire. As Ultra4 Europe’s Jim Marsden put it succinctly on the live commentary, a dragon should breathe fire, not catch fire. And so Wayes took over the lead. Last year, after rolling in qualifying, he managed to go from almost last to 6th in just one lap, in 2017 he was in front almost from the start… But how the early action unfolded was how the race panned out. Wayland had a turn in the lead, but weaving in and out of rocks in the sand then speeding up on the more open sections Scherer was in front, the positions changing faster than the helicopter footage or the live tracking could keep up.
Another big name in trouble early on was Shannon Campbell who crawled back to Remote Pit 1 with two punctures on his single-seater, mid-engined 850bhp, IFS car. The time lost dropped him a long way down the order… but his day wasn’t done yet.
At the end of the first 61 mile ‘easy’ loop out in the open desert it was Scherer from Wayes with Marcos Gomez in 3rd in his IFA and IRS car and another double winner Randy Slawson in 4th in his Bomber… but unfortunately that would be as high as he would get. The spare wheel had come loose and it was crushing the fuel tank so lengthy repairs were needed. He didn’t lose as much time as Bailey Campbell though. In 2016 Shannon’s young daughter came home an incredible 5th overall but early on, unsighted by the dust, she hit a big rock and broke the steering knuckle. She managed to get back to the pits, remarkably still in a good position, but as the crew set to work it soon became apparent that they’d brought two passenger side spare parts but none for the drivers. The time lost running around Hammertown looking for someone with a spare meant that she would not be repeating her previous year’s performance.
Shannon lost some more time in the pits by putting on the wrong helmet that wasn’t connected to comms and was out of the Top 10… But it was still very close at the front, the first ten drivers were remarkably only separated by just 7 minutes. The race was still absolutely anyone’s.
The names of the rock trails King of the Hammers has always been famous for have now become part of off-roading folklore; Backdoor, Chocolate Thunder, Outer Limits, Wrecking Ball, Aftershock… and into them for the first time it was Wayland ahead of Wayes followed by Scherer, all locked in a battle. The Top 3 were all in IFS (Independent Front Suspension) cars. With the freer moving front wheels these cars are known to be faster in the desert sections so it was expected that Miller, now in 4th and first of the solid axle cars would soon catch them. Until now the jury has been out in the debate between solid vs IFS, but the fact that last year’s champion had absolutely no answer for the three in front might hasten the development of more front suspension innovations soon.
Wayland lost some time before getting to Chocolate Thunder for the first time and that let Wayes in his bright orange Icon sponsored car into the lead, which in a display of masterful driving he managed to open up to eight minutes at one point, but on the final lap in Spooners he got hooked up on a big rock that blocked both forward and reverse movement. Being in a single seater without a co-driver he had to get out and winch, which would have been quite a simple maneuver if someone hadn’t driven over his winch line and snapped it. He wasn’t happy about that, but was still in the fight… until the transmission failed. One day the man with a mustache arguably even more splendid than JT Taylor’s will have the win he’s been threatening for years.
So, with just half a lap to go the lead battle was the tight fight between Scherer and Wayland. The two had been together since they first entered the rocks, each managing to scramble past the other on different trails. But Wayland had started a minute later off the startline so being right behind Scherer meant that he was actually in the lead on corrected time. That didn’t mean much when he chose a different route up Chocolate Thunder for the final time though as he also took the physical lead.
Father Shannon, in his tongue-in-cheek named Dragon Slayer, was up to 3rd by this point but was closer than he seemed because of corrected time and was pushing on but with only half a lap remaining the gap to the two ahead looked too big… But kilometre after kilometre, every time the online trackers reset, he was relentlessly closer, until with just a few trails to go he managed to force his way into the lead, although at the cost of a front tyre. Backdoor, one of the most fearsome obstacles on the whole course, was run in reverse this year, down instead of up, and as Shannon, hobbled by the missing tyre took his time down the ledge his young son Wayland took another line and flew straight off to retake the lead. He came across the line at full tilt with Shannon a minute behind on the rim to take an incredible family 1-2. But on corrected time he had the win by a mere 28 seconds, which after over 6 ½ hours of flat out driving on the toughest competition trails in the world is basically a photo finish. After being in the thick of the fight all day Scherer came in for a subdued 3rd while the rest of the field never really featured at all. Miller got a distant 4th nearly half an hour off the pace and JP, the best of the three Gomez brothers, took 5th.
One by one the battle weary teams came in to take the chequered flag and have their moment of fame on the finish ramp. Previously less than twenty managed to make it back before the cut-off at dark but as an indication of how much Ultra4 racers have stepped up this year nearly 50 teams managed the three laps in time.
Another driver of note is King of the Hammers stalwart Tony Pelligrino in his Genright sponsored car. The event began horribly with a transmission breakage putting him out of qualifying for a start at the back of the field. From 116th place he spent the entire day overtaking people to make it up to an incredible 11th at the end. A true never give up story, but also one of what might have been.
The glory and the champagne was all for the Campbell family, and rightly so, but there is another man who deserves a world of credit for what he’s created and achieved. In 11 years, to make a fun weekend between friends into the world’s biggest and hardest off-road event Dave Cole has done something absolutely incredible. He shuns the limelight but make no mistake, no one else could bring so many people together to go to such lengths and extremes to race. Hats off to Dave Cole.
And as part of the success story, the spin-off championship, Ultra4 Europe, licks off its four action packed rounds on the 12th to the 14th.
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