“My KOH Experience as a Competitor”
King of the Hammers in one word could be described as EPIC! My team and I set out on the notion to race in the 2013 KOH EMC race after we got a taste of racing in the W.E. Rock Dirt Riot series. My deployment helped set the build in motion; my sponsors enabled me to show up to the starting line! So thanks are in order first. Thank you Andrew as your mentorship has helped me grow in a sport that I knew nothing about but loved while you’re coaching and advice brought me to where I’m at today. Your shop Letzroll Off-road built a car I envisioned with ease and with the best parts. Thank you to Tim and Karol with Brown Dog Off-road for the peace of mind knowing our engine was going no where thanks to your mounts and brackets. Thank you to Bruce with Prime 4x4 for building me custom switch panels and making them with an arm’s reach for both my co-driver and I. Thank you to Scott with Deaver for jumping on board and helping us make the jeep handle the harsh desert at speeds. Thank you Neal with C-rok for the solid rear bumper and Jeremy with Performance lighting group for the killer LED light bars that blind the competition. Thank you Kevin with Randy’s ring and pinion for the Yukon goods. Special thanks to Doug with Bilstien for tuning our rear shocks, Dan with Ruff-stuff specialties for the killer rear light bar that enabled us to pass tech, Raceline wheels and Artec industries for your great products. All of you and your products turned a vision in to reality. Most importantly thanks to my wife Megan for supporting me and loving me even when I’m covered in grease or oil and have spent all day in the garage working on the car. Thanks to my mom Syndi and dad Robert for coming out and helping turn wrenches, feeding me and housing me in the middle of the desert for a week, but most importantly thanks for believing in me. Huge thanks to Rick for opening your property to us for a nice dust free camp and letting us use your truck to get to the remote pits. Thanks to one of my best friends Jonny aka “BEAST” for coming out and helping in the pits. You were instrumental and did everything before I had the chance to ask you to, so thanks. Thanks to my brother Adam who is also my co-driver, you help keep me calm and laser focused when were in the car and even when things don’t go the way we want we still have fun doing it.
We showed up in Johnson Valley with a purpose built Jeep Cherokee ready to try and tackle one of the hardest off-road races in the United States. My parents arrived at our friend’s property south of the lake bed across from HWY 247 on Saturday. I arrived with the Jeep on Sunday early afternoon. My dad and I unloaded the car and then my mom and I unloaded my truck in to the RV. Immediately my dad and I began working on the car finishing things I didn’t have time to before I departed. We adjusted our harness then installed rear shocks then finished with installing the GPS antenna. We ended the night with strapping my mom in a helmet latching the window nets and me telling her “ hold on” as we went for a little night romp. The next morning we woke up and drove in to the infamous “Hammer Town” where my mom, dad and I went through driver’s registration and got pit bands. We checked out the vendors, stopped by Artec and grabbed a few crates then made our way to the Letzroll Off-road pit where we chatted with Andrew owner and driver of the 4493 buggy and one of my sponsors while saying our hellos to the rest of the gang. We ended Monday with mounting my new Artec crates that secured all of our fluids and sat by the fire at our camp or so I thought. My brother surprised me by showing up way earlier than expected which was a huge shock and relief. So what do we do? Simple we put our safety gear on jumped in the car, latched belts and nets and took off to Hammer Town. As were driving doing 65 in the dirt I’m giving him a crash course on the new Lowrance GPS and going over the big changes to the car as the last time he was in it was during our first race which was still pretty much trail rig. We hit Boone rd. quickly dropped speeds and cruised on to Means Dry Lake Bed. Once we cleared the town and the fellow campers we got on the gas and took off to Chocolate thunder, where we came up behind another group. As the other group cleared the gate keeper and made it a good portion up we proceeded in to the gate keeper. I put the car in 4lo and up and over the gate keeper we went with on lookers cheering as a full bodied Cherokee made it look easy. We continued up the trail with ease and discussing possible lines and again before we knew it we were at the top, so we pulled left and went up and the sand hill and came back down to the bottom. My brother Adam in complete shock of how quickly we did it and at night was jazzed to say the least, in fact we both were because it was just a few years prior we were watching the cars go up that same trail and we both said “one day were going to do those trails” and there we were after conquering it. We looked down on the thriving full of life lake bed and town and were just in awe. After an hour of just enjoying the sound of LS motors and LED, amber and blue lights skirt the desert we figured it was time to head back as the perental’s might be worried. We pulled back in to camp and called it a night. Tuesday we woke up and got the cars loaded for a half day in hammer town with the plan on going through tech then pre running after. Adam and I got to tech and waited while they were finishing up another car. Once Chris and Wayne were ready we pulled the car in and up on the scales. This is where I began sweating bullets, not because I was about to race a brutal demanding course but because I was praying the car was under the 4500lbs mark or else we would be out due to our cage not being large enough (cars over 4500lbs need 2” tube, less than 4500lbs 1.75” which we have). Wayne asked me “what do you think it weighs” as he is looking at the monitor. I answered “don’t care as long as it’s less than 4500lbs”. Wayne smiles and replies back “you’re at 4300lbs” which made me let out a sign of relief. The rest of tech went very smoothly minus our amber dust light and running lights were not hard wired in to the ignition. That was the only thing we had to fix, and we were jacked about it. We parked the car back at Andrews pit and made our way over to Ruff Stuff Specialties where we met some of the coolest people on the lake bed. I introduced myself and my team to Dan and was asking him if he had any light bars like the one on display for sale and if so how much. He pointed me to his GM where I asked the same question where he tells me they do not, Dan curious of why we need it so badly ask. I tell him we need a rear light bar to hard wire a dust light and running lights to meet tech. Dan looks at me and says will take the one of the display rack for you. After he said that I was so happy but forgot to ask how much. I ask and Dan looks at his GM then back at us and says a price we couldn’t pass up, so we began pulling out our debt cards where he said no due to no capability of charging our cards. So again we all began pulling our money out to pay the man for his awesome product and looks at us with a smile and says “keep your money for the other things you may need in hammer town, Just pay me when you get home and will send you the back plate for the unit”. We were in disbelief at his character as this was truly a nice and really appreciative offer, so we thanked him, shook his hand grabbed his sticker for the car and went back to Andrews to install our new hardware. It took us a little bit to install the light and we weren’t thrilled with the location but we got it installed and working and went back to tech and got our paper signed and a band strapped on our cage, we were good to race! It was late afternoon and after our tech and frustrating install we went back to our camp ate some lunch then went back to work on the jeep. Somewhere in the process of the light install we grounded out the electric fan, so I fixed that and swapped serpentine belts as the old one sounded like a dying rabbit while my dad and brother remounted the rear light bar on top of the car’s hatch thus giving us more visibility behind the car and allowing us to mount our spare tire back in the car. We ended Tuesday with a hearty dinner and stories around the camp fire. Wednesday my brother and I woke up at 0530 (5:30 am for you civilian’s) and got ready in full race gear and made our way to hammer town to the short course. We got there about 0630 and off we went out of the short course over king hill and in to the sand wash by back door and out in to the lake bed then the worst desert imaginable. We were finally prerunning our 1st lap in the 2013 KOH EMC race and it felt great. The car was doing well, temps were nice GPS kept us on course and we were getting it pretty good. We hit RM 13 and hit this bump causing us to air out but thanks to gravity we came back down on all four smoothly and pressed on as we were screaming with excitement of jumping the car. We made our way to RM 29 when we hit this monster whoop or ditch that we didn’t see causing the front light bar to come undone, rear shocks to blow out and muffler to crack. We pulled off the course got out and examined. Minus the rear shocks the car was still solid, so I made a quick phone call to my mom and told her to have my dad and my buddy Jonny meet us at pit 1 with a sawzall and tools, then hung up. Adam and I got back in the car and off we went, the car felt great and temps were nice and cool. We pulled in to Pit 1 and looked the car over as we waited for our pit support. My dad and Jonny arrived shortly after and we removed the light bar, cut the muffler off and drank some of dad’s coffee and once again Adam and I got back in the car and off we went. We got out on the backside of a mountain around RM 43-44 I think and were making great time at pre-running speeds and waiting for our pit crew at pit 1. We hit what later would be dubbed “big dumb sand hill” which is this sand hill scattered with random rocks that take you up a ridge. The problem of this spot is you need a running start or your winching and only one car at a time can make it. Adam and I immediately said it, “this is where lap 1 will bottle neck”. We got up the section thanks to 4lo and the Goodyear MTR/K wrapped on Race line monster RT233 bead locks clawing our way up. Once we got up our temps got high and we shut her down for a few minutes while we discussed the past 40+ miles we just ran. Cars temps came down so we fired her back up and continued on course as we were on top of the ridge we could see all of hammer town and what a feeling knowing we just made the first lap with little issues. We descended the ridge and pulled off course about 2 miles shy of the short course due to time trails and LCQ as that was going on near the course and didn’t want to interfere with that. We made our way in to hammer town and back to Andrews pit where we immediately started getting heckled for finally showing up to the team meeting which we knew nothing about but just sorted worked out. We discussed race and pit strategies and then began working on the car. We pulled the rear shocks met with Doug and had him rebuild them and valve them a little stronger. As he was doing that we took the car to Ruff Stuff specialties were Jeff one of Andrews employees/pit members fixed our muffler by re-welding everything up and making it stronger. Brought the car back to the pit then walked over to IRC and got our tracker then made our way to rugged radios where they hooked us up with a killer deal on a race radio and intercom package as my brother and I were tired of screaming in our helmets to talk to each other. We got back and installed the tracker then began working on the race radio. We got everything wired and working so we walked over to Bilstien picked up our shocks and installed them but not till after Doug’s counterpart (sorry I forgot your name) helped us figure out rear bump stop solution to prevent us from blowing the shocks out again. So once we figured height Jeff and I took the car to miller as it was closer and they had material to help us fab up a quick bump stop strike pad. Jeff got the pieces and welded it up and back to Andrews for our team Yukon photo session/meet and greet. My wife drove in from work that day and showed up with a smile and a hug for me. 1900 (7pm) rolled around and all of us (myself, Megan, Adam, Jonny, Mom, Dad and Rick) all went to the drivers meeting. The drivers meeting was nice and we got a lot of cool stuff thanks to Master craft and smittybuilt but it went a little long and with us exhausted from the last minute prep and pre-running we were ready to go. Once the meeting was over I went back got the car and took it to rugged to have the radios tuned to our team frequencies. After that we all loaded up and returned to camp. As we got to camp mom made us all eat dinner as I drafted the last minute “to do list”. After dinner we tasked out items and knocked them out. Jonny tightened all the jam nuts and fueled the car to the filler neck and even a little on his pants. My dad and rick transferred gas from the regular cans to our race dump cans and riding cans for the main and remote pits, we realized though we didn’t have enough fuel for our cans so Jonny and my brother got in his truck and drove 12 miles to get gas at 2230 (10:30 pm) as we said it would suck not to finish the race because we ran out of fuel. My mom and Megan packed the ice chest full of drinks and food for the day. The list was completed so we changed and we all went to bed. I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to sleep but as soon as I hit the pillow I was out. We woke up early Thursday got dressed and Adam and I got in the car and made our way to the pits. It was cold that morning much colder than other ones. We met the Letzroll guys and started dumping parts and fuel for the different pits as Jonny, myself and Adam moved the car to where we needed to be. We got situated and in our position when jonny got out of the car Adam and I got in. We harnessed in tight, putt our helmets on, connected our intercom and parker pumper then put on our neck support collars and gloves. We then checked our race radios to find out we couldn’t hear the pits in our helmets. Jonny and Adam (not my brother but a fellow AZ wheeler and friend) ran to rugged to figure out why, they came back quickly with the solution and jonny jumped in the car dismounted the radio and plugged the wire in we missed. We are moving as Jonny is walking sideways and screwing the race radio back in place. We got it squared away got thumbs up from our team, our family and off we went following the other cars in front of us to the short course start/finish area. Last person we saw was Andrew; he told us good luck and have fun. We entered the short course and waited for our turn to go, my heart was racing and hands were shaking as we approached the start line. Dave Cole to my left counted down from five as he hit one the green flag dropped and my brother said calmly “get it”. I smashed the gas pedal and turned left towards the table top shifted up and off the table top we went catching some air. We turned slight left towards the hill and up we went as cars were stopped the car I launched with fell in line, not me as it is a race after all so I squeezed my way in front of him. There was a car stuck on a rock on the hill causing the traffic once it was our turn we put it in 4HI low gear and on the gas and up the hill we went taking the left line going around the stuck car. As we reached the top of the hill we went left following the cars which was dumb. Why was it dumb you ask well it wasn’t the course, our excitement of being here and in the race was unreal that we weren’t driving our race following our GPS but other people. After hearing my brother say we are way of course I may have yelled “get me on course” and “zoom the GPS in close to keep us on course if you have too”. Adam looks at the GPS and says turn around, so I did and then he said follow the Toyota so I did and back on course we were. I radioed to car 4669 Shawn Passmore (the other Letzroll Off-road racing stock class car) and told him in short what Adam told me to try and speed them up to get back on course. We came down in to the sand wash near back door, then hit some whoops and out to the lake bed chasing the Toyota we followed to get back on course. We had the car at 65-70 on the lake bed driving through dust, now that’s a rush (you can watch it here at 15:15 in the video http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/29107288 ). Once we cleared the lake bed we were back in the gnarly monster whoops and we were now driving our race taking it as fast as we felt comfortable but around RM 6 I started getting some funny play in my steering and told Adam maybe it was because were no longer in 4WD. We hit RM 7 and decided to pull over to investigate to make sure nothing was wrong. So we quickly egressed the car and began looking at the steering. Checked jam nuts but were nice and tight, checked wheels thinking maybe a flat but no so checked the ram assist but was good then I saw it and instantly became filled with emotions as fellow competitors and cars passed by. We had a crack in a track bar bracket below the frame rails, so Adam and I began brainstorming and quickly pulled ratchet straps and strapped it up with hopes of it holding. We got back in the car and I told Letzroll Main Pit the damage report and then asked could you get a welder to pit 1 and material as it is fixable and I think we can limp it there. Letzroll main pit came back and said yes! That was all I need to hear and off we went but at a much slower rate of speed now. We limped the car on the side of the course for our safety and to allow our fellow racers unobstructed travel. As we drove Adam and I were quite at first then began talking about once we got to Pit 1 and got it fixed that I was going to “drive the wheels off” the car to make up for the lost time. But things didn’t improve for us they got worse as we weren’t moving fast enough to cool the naturally hot 4.0 our temps began to climb. As it looked like things were getting better we heard the snap of the track bar bracket breaking in half completely. We stopped again told Letzroll Main pit, egressed the car and re-strapped it then got back in and called back and said were moving again. Around RM 20 we broke our ratchet straps and temps got higher. At RM 23.5 we reached temps as high as 240 degrees and then began seeing smoke. I pulled the car over instantly then killed power we egressed the car grabbing fire extinguishers and began to investigate. We checked under the car first before popping the hood exposing fresh air to a potential fire causing a flare up but thankfully there was none. Hood opened we began to investigate the cause of the smoke and we found engine oil down the side of the motor on the co-driver side covering our starter, oil filter etc. Then we found some sitting in pools on the intake manifold and that’s when I knew, we were done. This whole time Letzroll Main pit is waiting for an update and we can hear them calling but both Adam and I weren’t ready to say it, we weren’t ready for the bitter sweet reality that not everyone finishes King of the Hammers. I crawled out from under the car and told Adam to call it, we were done as I’m not prepared to lose our motor if we didn’t already or burn the car to the ground. As he radios back to Letzroll main pit I walked to the other side of the trail cleared the course and sat down. I was upset, disappointed, angry and felt like I let down my great sponsors and the people who supported us and with me being in the military failure is not something we train for so I didn’t know how to cope with that at the time. Adam comes up slaps my back puts his head on mine and says “sorry” then walks away to the other side and we just sit there in the Johnson Valley desert for an hour not saying a word. After some time passed we began to talk and work through this defeat we were feeling and with the sound of the radio keying up and Letzroll Main pit say they are working on a recovery made it feel a little better. We placed our brake down signals and made sure no fluids were leaking on the ground and went and sat in the car. Adam and I learned that the neck supports make good pillows for naps. About 3 or 4 hours later we had the recovery crew Mike and Steve (I believe are their names and I believe are part of the AZ undertakers, sorry if I’m wrong) and my dad and jonny. I was happy to see everyone but jonny as he pulls up in his infinity (fancy pathfinder) and says “ is this the race course, we left after the UTV’s but wanted to be sure were going the right way”. This is the guy who said all week he was going to beat my car in the race and here he is doing exactly that, jerk. After we laugh we strap the car to the buggy and we are moving. I look to Adam and start to joke with him by saying “are we still on course I feel like were going the wrong way” or “hey at least the temps are down”. He laughs and says a few choice words as he shakes his head. Mike and Steve pull us to my truck and trailer where my mom, Megan and Rick were waiting for us. We disconnect the car from the buggy and off they went. I thought my car troubles were done there seeing my dependable Dodge ram truck and trailer so we pull the winch line and strap it to the trailer with the idea of winching up as we are not sure what’s wrong with the motor. We started winching but began pulling the trailer up so we used my tie down straps and my D ring and got up but once were up the trailer hitch was sagging. After looking at the hitch we found the two nuts that thread on the bolts to keep the hitch in place were missing, perfect! I didn’t have spare nuts or bolts in my truck or the jeep, but once again Jonny came through and found a solution to our problem. It just so happened that my drag link nut that bolts to the pitman arm was the same size of the nut and thread type for the bolt on the hitch. So Jonny pulled it off and tossed it over and Adam and I bolted it up figuring one nut is better than none right? After it was tight and back together we reconnected the trailer and all of us loaded up and head for HWY 247 and back to camp. We got back to camp unloaded the truck we were using for the pit car and then Adam, myself and Jonny got in Adam’s truck and we went in to Hammer town and back to Andrews pit. We explained to everyone about our damage, Andrew informed us we had 30 seconds of a 4 minute video they showed on the jumbotron so that brightened my spirits a little. Jonny returned the IRC tracker and let them know we were safe and good and we hung out with the guys till the 4511 (Alan Johnson Letzroll off-road racing Mod-stock car) car came in. But before we left Andrew said he was proud of us and that meant a lot to me as Andrew had a guaranteed spot in the 2013 KOH main event and was 3rd nationally for the Dirt Riot series, so I shook his hand and said “thanks”. We went back to camp ate dinner and sat by the fire with a few drinks of the 21 and over kind. We called it a night and all went to sleep. We woke up late on Friday as we had no where to be and nothing we had to do. We turned on our portable rugged race radio and tuned in to Andrew and Frosty in the 4493 buggy and listened to them as we ate a huge breakfast. We just hung out that day as my sister and nephews came out for the day to see us so it was a nice break from the constant excitement and stress of racing and more so of racing KOH. Myself, Megan, Adam and Jonny all went in to hammer town and watched the jumbotron as well as hang out at Andrews pit for a little bit then made our way back to our camp where my mom baked a birthday cake for Jonny as it was his birthday and then ate dinner. We continued to monitor the race radio on the 4493 buggy and when we heard they were close to finishing my brother and I jumped in my dad’s Samurai and made our way to the pits in hammer town to cheer Andrew and Frosty when they cross the finish line. Our bad luck of car issues would be back though as somewhere on Boone rd. in to hammer town we got a flat on one of my dad’s tires, go figure. Adam and I watched Andrew and Frosty in the 4493 buggy cross the finish line in 18th after starting 87th out of 127 cars. He automatically was guaranteed in next year’s KOH. Watching them cross the finish line made everything else right. A solid finish that was well deserved, not bad for a large race team. We congratulated them and then headed back to our camp where we went to bed. Saturday came and Megan packed up and left for home and so did our friend Rick. Mom and dad cleaned up while Adam and I drove in to town for some hardware for a more permanent fix to the trailer hitch. We got everything fixed loaded our cars and were about to leave when my brothers truck wouldn’t start, it just wasn’t our week with cars. After we jumped his truck we all said our good byes and drove home. That was my KOH as a competitor experience. Epic.
Team M.A.D #4634
Matthew Salyers
Owner/Driver
