This year’s King of the Hammers saw several firsts, including a back-to-back winner.

For the first time in event history, a champ has taken back-to-back overall wins. Jason Scherer, a pro ‘wheeler from NorCal, won the KoH with a time of 6:32:39. This adds to his victory last year and a win back in 2009. Scherer was victorious alongside his co-driver, Jason Berger, who also drove with him last year. Erik Miller, who won the event in both 2012 and 2016, took second place with a time of 6:38:01.

Putting an exclamation point on just how tough King of the Hammers is on drivers and equipment, a total of 29 teams in the 4400 Class finished the event in its allotted time – which sounds great until one realizes there were sixty DNFs. KoH tests every aspect of driver, co-driver, and machine. Simply making it to the finish line in time for the 10:00pm cutoff is a major achievement.

Fun trivia: King of the Hammers is a relatively young event compared to the likes of competitions like Baja and the Mint. This year’s winner Scherer took the checkers when KoH was in its infancy back in 2009, a time when a moderately-sized group of gearheads strung the race together to test their machines on a series of trails bearing the word ‘hammer’. Today, it draws about 50,000 spectators to Johnson Valley, not to mention the quarter-million fans who tune in to the livestream.

In another first, a new Jeep Gladiator competed in the associated Every Man Challenge Race. This even is shorter than the Hammers but is nevertheless still outrageously challenging. Built by an off-road shop in Cali, it tackled the 4600 Stock Class which requires rigs to use a factory engine, stock frame, full body, single shock at each corner, and 35-inch tall street-legal tires.

This means that while this Gladiator was certainly built, it still deployed an everyday Pentastar V6. Its drivers didn’t hold back; check out the tailgate damage shown in the IG post below!

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Words cannot describe how awesome this is to me! Finished King the hammers – EMC with heated steering wheel, satellite radio..etc. LOL. Savvy did an amazing job prepping this Jeep in little time. Dynatrac axles did great and the rest of the team. Erik Miller and Robby Gordon…Smooth and awesome driving! Just so much awesome in all levels! #epic #race #jeep #gladiator #koh19 #emc #fun #work #wicked #history #truck #finish #rockcrawling #Dynatrac #savvyoffroad

A post shared by Tony Carvallo (@t_carvallo) on Feb 7, 2019 at 7:57am PST

There is a UTV class as well, in which Polaris is a perennial threat. Factory driver Mitch Guthrie Jr. secured his win in Johnson Valley in the new RZR XP Turbo S Velocity. In the main, he showcased the gonzo new Polaris UTV, dominating the terrain and exercising a wealth of talent to outpace the competition.

The *draws breath* Nitto King of the Hammers powered by Optima Batteries *exhales* kicks off the Ultra4 season, a series which actually consists of three series divided into East, West, and North. Within each, multiple races are held. Next up is the Ultra4 Stampede, held near Sacramento, on March 22^nd.

[image: YouTube]