#KingOfTheHammers

The King of the Hammers is known as the toughest off-road race in the world, and this year, the person who conquers the course will go home with a brand-new, 2015 RZR XP 1000 EPS.

As part of Polaris RZR being the official side-by-side of the race, Polaris sweetened the deal by offering up a RZR XP 1000 EPS to the Pro Class side-by-side winner. Last year, 26 side-by-sides would vie for “The Hammer” with five-time Hammers Winner Mitch Guthrie winning in his RZR XP 1000 EPS.

PRP Seats has announced the addition of five-time King of the Hammers (KOH) UTV champion Mitch Guthrie Sr. to its race team.

“We’re really happy to have Mitch driving in PRP’s now.” said PRP Seats’ Marketing Director, Jason DeArmond. “We’ve designed our seats to be for all day riding and King of the Hammers is a perfect venue. Mitch has been unbeatable the last five years and we’re confident the comfort and safety of our seats and harnesses will keep him there.”

Lined up against a field of heavily modified Side-by-Sides, Kawasaki’s Casey Currie piloted his Kawasaki Teryx4 stock 750-class engine to finish third in the 2014 King of the Hammers (KOH) UTV Pro Class.

Currie, with a factory-spec 749cc V-Twin powering his Kawasaki Teryx4, beat out 23 challengers in the fully-modified Side-by-Side class.

Polaris has expanded its race team for 2014, including a return to sponsored ATV racing.

Polaris comes into the 2014 off-road race season with teams competing in the Grand National Cross Country series (GNCC), World Off-Road Championship series (WORCS), Best in the Desert (BITD), SCORE International, Lucas Off-Road Regional Racing Series (LORRS), King of the Hammers (KOH) and Mud racing. Polaris will continue to offer its ATV and Side-by-Side contingency, and has added a reimbursement program on select models.

“After another highly-successful race season, Polaris decided to expand its factory race team for 2014,” says Donna Beadle, race team manager for Polaris’ Off-Road Division. “We are very excited to return to ATV racing in GNCC, and our RZR teams are even stronger this year.”

With the 2013 ATV and Side-by-Side racing season upon us, Polaris has announced its race teams and contingency program.

Polaris will have teams competing in the Grand National Cross Country series (GNCC), World Off-Road Championship series (WORCS), Best in the Desert (BITD), SCORE International and Mud racing. Polaris also will continue to offer its ATV racing contingency program and has expanded its Side-by-Side contingency, which now includes both the BITD and SCORE series.

“After a successful 2012, Polaris decided to expand its factory race team for 2013,” says Donna Beadle, race team manager for Polaris’ Off-Road Division. “We look forward to another exciting and successful race season.”

GNCC

Polaris will continue to support National Guard/Polaris/Coastal racing for 2013. William Yokley took the GNCC championship in his National Guard RZR XP 900 and will look to five-peat in the GNCC series this year. Yokley’s teammate, Scott Kiger finished second in the GNCC Open Modified class in his RZR XP 900 and is back for 2013.

Polaris has provided support to the Muscle Milk/Blingstar team for 2013, and the team has signed Adam McGill to race a RZR XP 900 in the Open Modified class. The Muscle Milk/Blingstar team also will run the WORCS with RZR XP 900s.

The King of the Hammers might just be the most challenging single-day off-road race in the world. An assortment of some of the most insane four wheelers in the world take to the deserts of Southern California every year to try and tame the Hammers.

Mitch Guthrie was the fastest UTV, finishing the 80-mile course of fast-paced desert riding and ridiculous rock-crawling with a time of 2:20.46.

Pit Bull Tires has once again taken the lead and is returning as title sponsor for the 2012 Pit Bull Tires King of The Hammers UTV Race presented by SXSPerformance.com. This year’s event promises to be bigger than last years with big prize money and more classes competing to be crowned the UTV King of the Hammers.

This year’s event will be the best yet as Ultra4 Racing has partnered with the International Side X Side Association (ISA) to sanction the UTV Race.

“The team at the ISA has worked long and hard to create a uniform rules package that gives drivers of different vehicle types and skill levels a chance at being competitive,” says Ultra4 Director Dave Cole.

The PitBull Tires UTV Race presented by SXSPerformance.com will feature five classes of competition that will allow everything from a Stock RZR to a fully modified Teryx to compete competitively in the race.

With $5,000 in prize money from Pit Bull Tires up for grabs in this year’s race the top 3 overall UTVs will split the purse as follows; 1st- $3000 2nd-$1500 and 3rd $500. All classes will receive trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd and the overall winner will receive the coveted KOH Hammer.

Early this morning (Wednesday, November 10, 2010) we joined a group of off-road editors for a two-day adventure ride from Big Bear Lake, Calif. to Las Vegas, Nev. We’ll provide a more thorough write-up in soon, but we figured we’d let you know how the first day of our journey went.

The destination for Day 1 was Barstow, Calif., which proved to be just about a 90-mile ride over some remarkably varried terrain. We started off up in the mountains of the San Bernardino Forrest, but we quickly began our descent to the desert below.

Much of the day was spent taking on loose, rocky trails, but we also happened upon a small dune that we played around in for a half hour or so. After the sand we headed right for the rocks. This area is home to the notorious King of the Hammers race. While we took on some challenging climbs over the rocks, we stayed away from most of the crazier ascents.