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KOH

I still need to go through all of my pictures, but this is my favorite one that I got from a friend:
3526.jpeg
 
I could write pages on every KOH. Here's our brief story. As much as I can remember. I showed up thursday afternoon to set up our camp/garage area and spent a nice quiet evening wiring/rigging some additional lights in our trailer kitchen as kind of the calm before the storm. We've been renting a toyhauler from some friends in Riverside so we also spent some time in the evening leveling trailers with a little extra care since we'd be in them for a while. I was really there to help Kevin and crew from Pac Fab/Tilden with their 4500 effort. It's a brand new car that was a CAD drawing at the beginning of November so it's pretty fresh.
Friday morning Kevin showed up with his toter and trailer and proceeded to get stuck in the sand in the garage area. It wasn't bad, the toter actually drove itself out and then we just needed my dually and another pickup to get the trailer moving and parked. Somehow we spent the next few days not doing much while being busy the whole time. I watched some of the Motos race with my son who is prepping to race it next year (crazy), worked on suspension setup and tuning on Kevin's car with Fox, worked on getting the steering working better with PSC (swapped servos basically, they did some magic somehow), dealt with all the logistic crap like parking stickers and waivers and meetings, etc. Despite a couple bugs the car was in pretty good shape to race by time for the qualifier but he had some problems on the one rock hill that we actually think carried over to the race.
We finally got a little time to pre-run rocks on tuesday so we did a trip down resolution and around most of the trails with the exception of going down sledge. It was really nice getting back out on the rocks in Wally. It made me realize how much we were able to pre-run in the last few years of our effort and how valuable that still is. A short refresher got me back to remembering where we were on most of the trails even without multiple laps. Turns out fourwheeling is still fun! We did prerun the desert portion in a 4 seat CanAm which really rode pretty nice but I got a back seat and was literally wedged in there so it was a little rugged. Overall the course was super fun but it was obvious that the 4400 race was going to be a fast one as the rocks were pretty laid down after a couple hundred small tire cars ran through.
Wednesday we spent a bunch of time setting up communications since Kevin is buddies with Scherer and would using their pit structure. So we made about 15 trips to Rugged to get everything programmed and ready. This is when I realized that our collection of the Rugged RH5s is getting large since somehow we have 7 of them and a pair of high quality Icom handhelds too. It was a chore for the Rugged guys to get it all synched but they did and it's all good now.
Race day (thursday) started all good and we hear them say they're starting down Resolution which is not far from Hammertown. So I put in my earbuds, strap on my helmet and get ready to get in. I was the rock trail co-dog. Then I look up and some poor co-driver is running around the hill to the pit area and one of the course workers picks him up on his dirtbike and brings him to our pit. Turns out it was Rick, Kevin's desert lap co-dog. They had lost a rear shaft out of the Torc 14 bolt, like literally it fell out somewhere. So we pulled a shaft out of our Convertible K30 and I took off up the hill with the shaft and a handful of bolts. When I got to the car, Kevin already had all the broken bolts pulled out so we were able to slide the shaft in and start heading down toward Backdoor. At this point the front 14 bolt ARB was blowing air out the vent for some reason so we had an open front which isn't ideal on a downhill rock trail. But Kevin re-learned driving rocks real quick and then we starting waiting in line at Backdoor. With the front not locked up I thought it might be a good idea to put a line on the back of the car when we went off so I set that up with the driver behind us, then turned around and watched Kevin drive over the edge and pull it off just fine. So I jumped in and started putting on belts, helmet, window net, etc while bouncing around in the car. This was to be a theme for the day.
 
When we got to the main pit at Hammertown we decided to pull the front 3rd to try to fix the air locker. With a ton of help from Kevin's shop crew, my Dad, the Rage 4th crew and even some ARB factory support, we put a new air housing in it and after about an hour and half we were strapping back in the car. The copper line had been pulled around inside the housing and broken off from the housing ring. In hindsight, we think it's something to do with thick gear oil and oil dynamics in the Torc dropout. So we peel out and head around for Aftershock. On pretty much the first real rock on the bottom of the trail we belly out a little bit and find out the front isn't locking and when we pull the vent line, air is coming out. Probably the same problem again. AARRGG. After some contemplation time, we decided to push on and see how far we could get. This is around the time Jimmy Jack caught up to us and somehow we ended up following him for most of the afternoon and evening. We took the sketchy sidehill line in aftershock because the z turn was full of cars but turns out by the time we maneuvered around the side hill we didn't pass much. Then it was around to Sunbonnet where the real rock crawling started. Somehow by the end of the day we're pretty sure we only winched our car 3 times but we were in so much traffic that was bound up it seems like I was building highways and pulling cables for hours. We managed to stick right with Jimmy till we were dropping down sledge and came across a suzuki racecar that let Jimmy by and then rolled over in front of us at the Plaque. I figured we were there for the night but the dude managed to drive it back onto the wheels somehow and get moving again. Then we dropped off the plaque and got hung up with the wrong tire spinning up front and had to winch out. We came around to the bottom of chocolate thunder and had timed out by about 4 minutes. So we hung a left and went to camp.
Overall a pretty strong run for a new car that never worked 100%. It was pretty amazing how well it got through the rocks with the 16" -ish belly pan. But Kevin's not afraid of the skinny pedal and his LS2 ran great (it better when he's the motor guy!) and worked really good with the torque convertor stall and Magnum gearing. We pretty much ran in 2:1 low on all the rocks and only snapped the Magnum planets into low when it was really tricky.
Friday, Kevin was crewchief for scherererer and their team was pretty well staffed so I took my dirtbike and a radio and tried to hit as many course access points as I could to call in time splits and visual checks on the car. I actually got to see some racing that way, one pass out in the desert that was a good part of a mile out but still fun to see along with seeing the top 3 cars battle all day. Turns out the visual checks were important since we had reports the car was on fire, had axle problems and who knows what else and I just watched them drive on by looking 100%. Accurate reports are always nice for pit crews.
Saturday, my youngest son wanted to drive the convertible up Chocolate Thunder so I took him over there, drove a lap myself and then let him drive. Considering the chaos of just the recreational wheeling going on he did great. We drove around roll overs, pulled guys out, took optional lines, all kinds of fun stuff. Then it was time to go home which wasn't all that unwelcome after being on the lakebed for about 10 days. We did make it up into Utah in time to stop and do a quick trip on the bikes around the dead cow loop in the White Wash area so that broke up the ride home nicely.
I did get to rip a mirror off a merging car somewhere north of Vegas. That was new. I'm coming up to an on ramp with a couple cars on it and check my left mirror and find another car next to me so I can't get over. So I figure the cars on the ramp will just have to check up and yield. They didn't seem to think that's the way merging works and the white car in front ended up running out of road and braking pretty hard. Red car behind them must have mis calculated something and I just heard what sounded like I drove over a water bottle. I waited a while before I pulled over since I thought this would be a good chance to get road raged somehow and when I checked out the trailer everything was fine. When I parked at White Wash I jackknifed a little which the truck pulled to the driver's side and then I see this red mark on the front edge of the gooseneck. Turns out it's the shape of a mirror. Apparently the red car hooked his mirror between my flatbed and gooseneck before he hit the brakes. The whole side of the trailer was un touched luckily. All I got out of it is a good story.
So now I better go to work.
 
Stephen said:
I could write pages on every KOH. Here's our brief story. As much as I can remember. I showed up thursday afternoon to set up our camp/garage area and spent a nice quiet evening wiring/rigging some additional lights in our trailer kitchen as kind of the calm before the storm. We've been renting a toyhauler from some friends in Riverside so we also spent some time in the evening leveling trailers with a little extra care since we'd be in them for a while. I was really there to help Kevin and crew from Pac Fab/Tilden with their 4500 effort. It's a brand new car that was a CAD drawing at the beginning of November so it's pretty fresh.
Friday morning Kevin showed up with his toter and trailer and proceeded to get stuck in the sand in the garage area. It wasn't bad, the toter actually drove itself out and then we just needed my dually and another pickup to get the trailer moving and parked. Somehow we spent the next few days not doing much while being busy the whole time. I watched some of the Motos race with my son who is prepping to race it next year (crazy), worked on suspension setup and tuning on Kevin's car with Fox, worked on getting the steering working better with PSC (swapped servos basically, they did some magic somehow), dealt with all the logistic crap like parking stickers and waivers and meetings, etc. Despite a couple bugs the car was in pretty good shape to race by time for the qualifier but he had some problems on the one rock hill that we actually think carried over to the race.
We finally got a little time to pre-run rocks on tuesday so we did a trip down resolution and around most of the trails with the exception of going down sledge. It was really nice getting back out on the rocks in Wally. It made me realize how much we were able to pre-run in the last few years of our effort and how valuable that still is. A short refresher got me back to remembering where we were on most of the trails even without multiple laps. Turns out fourwheeling is still fun! We did prerun the desert portion in a 4 seat CanAm which really rode pretty nice but I got a back seat and was literally wedged in there so it was a little rugged. Overall the course was super fun but it was obvious that the 4400 race was going to be a fast one as the rocks were pretty laid down after a couple hundred small tire cars ran through.
Wednesday we spent a bunch of time setting up communications since Kevin is buddies with Scherer and would using their pit structure. So we made about 15 trips to Rugged to get everything programmed and ready. This is when I realized that our collection of the Rugged RH5s is getting large since somehow we have 7 of them and a pair of high quality Icom handhelds too. It was a chore for the Rugged guys to get it all synched but they did and it's all good now.
Race day (thursday) started all good and we hear them say they're starting down Resolution which is not far from Hammertown. So I put in my earbuds, strap on my helmet and get ready to get in. I was the rock trail co-dog. Then I look up and some poor co-driver is running around the hill to the pit area and one of the course workers picks him up on his dirtbike and brings him to our pit. Turns out it was Rick, Kevin's desert lap co-dog. They had lost a rear shaft out of the Torc 14 bolt, like literally it fell out somewhere. So we pulled a shaft out of our Convertible K30 and I took off up the hill with the shaft and a handful of bolts. When I got to the car, Kevin already had all the broken bolts pulled out so we were able to slide the shaft in and start heading down toward Backdoor. At this point the front 14 bolt ARB was blowing air out the vent for some reason so we had an open front which isn't ideal on a downhill rock trail. But Kevin re-learned driving rocks real quick and then we starting waiting in line at Backdoor. With the front not locked up I thought it might be a good idea to put a line on the back of the car when we went off so I set that up with the driver behind us, then turned around and watched Kevin drive over the edge and pull it off just fine. So I jumped in and started putting on belts, helmet, window net, etc while bouncing around in the car. This was to be a theme for the day.
Click to expand...


Glad to hear that Offroading is still fun. I need to do a lot more of it. Awesome summary, I really hope nothing messes up the hammers for me next year.
 
We'll be there. Planning on having the compound set up right outside the back gate again. We'll probably be getting there the Wednesday before race week.
 
Sweet! I'm looking forward to doing some wheelin with you guys. Well be there Tuesday of race week until the Monday after. Not sure where we'll set up camp. For some reason we usually set up South of hammer town close enough to walk to it
 
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