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RWK’s- King of The Hammers - Every Mans Challenge - #4692 Re-Cap…
Thursday, my team and I arrived at Hammertown. We unloaded and setup camp and Cory jumped in and I took the Yukon, Rock Krawler XJ out for some last minute testing in whoops and a few small rocks. We were going around to the desert behind Resolution, while coming over a break over and not seeing well over the other side; we slowed to about 5 MPH. Just over it and seeing it’s a straight down, I blipped the throttle to get the jeep to start to move down the other side. At that point, our whole “King of the Hammers” experience took a turn. The drivers front tire hit clean center on what we found to be a bolder about 12” tall and planted very deep in to the soil. The jeep jumped up in the rear and planted over a bit and we then heard a tire leak. We got out to find a tire quickly losing air but fortunately no real wheel damage, not even a scratch. Next: the game changer! The driver’s side axle tube was loose off the Currie Rockjock 60. After looking further, the whole center housing cracked and the tube welds were all broken. The rockjock was destroyed and there only tool bags we had, were back in camp.
Cory spotted to make sure the jeep would drive on the flat land with the tube pushed back about 2-3”, without damaging the Jeep any further. It was drivable. As I proceeded slowly, Cory shouted “Just go! I will walk!” I drove about 10-15mph for about a mile. Then a neighbor that is racing a Mod class, Mike, just happened to be driving out that way and stopped. Mike has been generous and neighborly enough that he has helped with some needs for my build and again, he was there to help. Mike and I get the spare tire on and I drive it back to camp. The team and I put it back on the trailer and begin our 3-4 hour ride back to Yorba Linda. Along with Cory & Ted, I get the axle out and stripped – this is a bit of challenge since the Krawler joints have been bent inside as well as the control arm bolts through them. They had to be cut apart to get the links off.
Friday morning, Currie Enterprises did what they do best. At 7 a.m. they took my RockJock that they rebuilt a few months past, and built a new one, with my Reed inner Kingpin knuckles that were on the now destroyed one. The shop had been given instruction that they are to do everything they could for the King of The Hammer teams. And to not go home till those needs were met. What a great company! (Kudos to Currie!) They built my new Rockjock with the USA Made center, 3/8” chromoly tube, and we were happy to be back in the garage doing install at 4:00 p.m.
A late night fab, and wrenching, with Cory, Ted and now Charles, to get the remaining custom brackets made and welded on and the axle in the Jeep by Friday night, was a tall order. We had to get the garage rewired for 220V, and Charles brought over the welder and plasma. We got done about 11p.m. and slept till 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning and it was back on the road to get on the Lakebed by 7 a.m.
Arrived as scheduled, Scott Hartman was relieved to see I didn’t kill our chances and that we were in back in business again. Scott had said this was the fasted XJ he has ever driven. Faster than any others he has driven in Jeepspeed and faster and better than a few he has driven that have even won Jeepspeed events. Overall, Scott was very impressed with the XJ and expressed an interest in racing it again.
Saturday morning – Tech Inspection. It went well. They altered a rule and made the tail lights required to be on when the ignition was one. While I am fairly certain that was not in the rules to start, Charles, being my life savior on this build with all things electrical, quickly re-wired the tails to the amber. The Dust Junkies and myself, Cory, & Charles, all began prepping the car for the race. Lots of small stuff, radio tuning, winch remote mountings, zip ties for everything, etc…
Sunday morning was awesome! An incredible experience for everyone. We got the car to the starting line-up and waited for placement. Families were there for everyone, my 4-year old son was there so excited about his Dad being a race car driver, all waiting to see us off with the green flag.
We lined up 2nd row, next to the infamous Robby Bobby, and I have got to tell you… he was a good guy, no matter what you read on Pirate . We pulled-up and got a word from a crew member, that the “jumps” were not to go fast over as they are too steep. Robby made our turn in to the starting line hard with his line in, and I heard Scott say, don’t worry that will be the last time we see him.
3-2-1 flag dropped and Scott hit the throttle. I don’t know if Robby was slow, but I do know we got it, from that point forward.
We had some issues in testing that we could not pin-point. The car would stall on a hard braking. Scott had a idea to just run 4-high the whole time and maybe the rear driveshaft can’t stop then (without the front also) and maybe that would help. We hoped. But it did not. We were stalling out about every ¾ mile on the average. And with a high compression motor and pumper going, fans going, 110W radio going, comm., etc. It was not an easy start each time. We got passed by others a few times while trying to restart, but always passed them back in the next ½ mile or so.
The first few miles of desert were easy going with nice, calm, smooth but fast driving. Just before we got the rolling hills about MM6 I would guess, the V-8 ZJ on links (stock class 2nd place finisher) passed us as we were restarting the engine. From that point on we could not get around him as the path was too narrow and dusty. So at a few points in the race, Scott just turned the horn on (On/Off switch) and left it on. He would not move out of our way. Scott wanted to bump, and I even thought he was going to at one point, but he chose not too.
Coming down out of the hills about MM9 we both saw the flat dry lake bed coming up and Scott states, “we will pass him here.” I looked over and all gauges were perfect (185 temp, 140 trans, 12-14A/F, 55-60oil psi). Just for good measure I flip on both the radiator and transmission fans as we come up to the bed, and off we go blazing in all of our glory.
He had us about 6 car lengths and we were even speed all thru 1st. 2nd was about even with catching him slowly till top of 2nd, and we were gaining. Our motor was built for up to 6500 I was told, but our stock ECU had about a 5500 limiter. So in 3rd we started to catch him quickly and we were going for the pass within seconds. Scott asked “are we good for 4th ”? The car was on 17psi 35” tires and traveling at 82 MPH at 4k. I read all the gauges and everything still perfect and responded to Scott with “hell yeah, lets pass him!” He hit 4th and shortly there after, the cab started filling with smoke. A look at the gauges again and all was good, but we were losing power fast and we had to cut it off and roll to a stop. At MM14 we were done.
Looks as though the engine either lost a rod bearing or two, and or a piston let go. It was puking oil out all holes where it could blow out something in the hole. PCV, Dist, Oil Fill cap, etc.
We stopped efforts and called in for recovery.
While waiting, we did see both other Cherokees go buy some time later. That was good to see as we knew both had starting line issues. We looked over and also saw a mod car broken about 1/8 mile just to the side of us. He had twisted and lost a driveshaft that proceeded to take out all kinds of things under their jeep. Then about 15 minutes later a JK comes up rolling slow! He had broken off a Teraflex inner C on his Teraflex CDR60 front axle. The knuckle was just held on with 2 ratchet straps to the track bar bracket and such.
Overall it was a great time! I would have loved to have raced it further and finished or won. But this was a once in a lifetime event for me. If it wasn’t for such great and supportive companies and team members supporting our passion and pass time, we would have never had made it to this event.
Thursday, my team and I arrived at Hammertown. We unloaded and setup camp and Cory jumped in and I took the Yukon, Rock Krawler XJ out for some last minute testing in whoops and a few small rocks. We were going around to the desert behind Resolution, while coming over a break over and not seeing well over the other side; we slowed to about 5 MPH. Just over it and seeing it’s a straight down, I blipped the throttle to get the jeep to start to move down the other side. At that point, our whole “King of the Hammers” experience took a turn. The drivers front tire hit clean center on what we found to be a bolder about 12” tall and planted very deep in to the soil. The jeep jumped up in the rear and planted over a bit and we then heard a tire leak. We got out to find a tire quickly losing air but fortunately no real wheel damage, not even a scratch. Next: the game changer! The driver’s side axle tube was loose off the Currie Rockjock 60. After looking further, the whole center housing cracked and the tube welds were all broken. The rockjock was destroyed and there only tool bags we had, were back in camp.
Cory spotted to make sure the jeep would drive on the flat land with the tube pushed back about 2-3”, without damaging the Jeep any further. It was drivable. As I proceeded slowly, Cory shouted “Just go! I will walk!” I drove about 10-15mph for about a mile. Then a neighbor that is racing a Mod class, Mike, just happened to be driving out that way and stopped. Mike has been generous and neighborly enough that he has helped with some needs for my build and again, he was there to help. Mike and I get the spare tire on and I drive it back to camp. The team and I put it back on the trailer and begin our 3-4 hour ride back to Yorba Linda. Along with Cory & Ted, I get the axle out and stripped – this is a bit of challenge since the Krawler joints have been bent inside as well as the control arm bolts through them. They had to be cut apart to get the links off.
Friday morning, Currie Enterprises did what they do best. At 7 a.m. they took my RockJock that they rebuilt a few months past, and built a new one, with my Reed inner Kingpin knuckles that were on the now destroyed one. The shop had been given instruction that they are to do everything they could for the King of The Hammer teams. And to not go home till those needs were met. What a great company! (Kudos to Currie!) They built my new Rockjock with the USA Made center, 3/8” chromoly tube, and we were happy to be back in the garage doing install at 4:00 p.m.
A late night fab, and wrenching, with Cory, Ted and now Charles, to get the remaining custom brackets made and welded on and the axle in the Jeep by Friday night, was a tall order. We had to get the garage rewired for 220V, and Charles brought over the welder and plasma. We got done about 11p.m. and slept till 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning and it was back on the road to get on the Lakebed by 7 a.m.
Arrived as scheduled, Scott Hartman was relieved to see I didn’t kill our chances and that we were in back in business again. Scott had said this was the fasted XJ he has ever driven. Faster than any others he has driven in Jeepspeed and faster and better than a few he has driven that have even won Jeepspeed events. Overall, Scott was very impressed with the XJ and expressed an interest in racing it again.
Saturday morning – Tech Inspection. It went well. They altered a rule and made the tail lights required to be on when the ignition was one. While I am fairly certain that was not in the rules to start, Charles, being my life savior on this build with all things electrical, quickly re-wired the tails to the amber. The Dust Junkies and myself, Cory, & Charles, all began prepping the car for the race. Lots of small stuff, radio tuning, winch remote mountings, zip ties for everything, etc…
Sunday morning was awesome! An incredible experience for everyone. We got the car to the starting line-up and waited for placement. Families were there for everyone, my 4-year old son was there so excited about his Dad being a race car driver, all waiting to see us off with the green flag.
We lined up 2nd row, next to the infamous Robby Bobby, and I have got to tell you… he was a good guy, no matter what you read on Pirate . We pulled-up and got a word from a crew member, that the “jumps” were not to go fast over as they are too steep. Robby made our turn in to the starting line hard with his line in, and I heard Scott say, don’t worry that will be the last time we see him.
3-2-1 flag dropped and Scott hit the throttle. I don’t know if Robby was slow, but I do know we got it, from that point forward.
We had some issues in testing that we could not pin-point. The car would stall on a hard braking. Scott had a idea to just run 4-high the whole time and maybe the rear driveshaft can’t stop then (without the front also) and maybe that would help. We hoped. But it did not. We were stalling out about every ¾ mile on the average. And with a high compression motor and pumper going, fans going, 110W radio going, comm., etc. It was not an easy start each time. We got passed by others a few times while trying to restart, but always passed them back in the next ½ mile or so.
The first few miles of desert were easy going with nice, calm, smooth but fast driving. Just before we got the rolling hills about MM6 I would guess, the V-8 ZJ on links (stock class 2nd place finisher) passed us as we were restarting the engine. From that point on we could not get around him as the path was too narrow and dusty. So at a few points in the race, Scott just turned the horn on (On/Off switch) and left it on. He would not move out of our way. Scott wanted to bump, and I even thought he was going to at one point, but he chose not too.
Coming down out of the hills about MM9 we both saw the flat dry lake bed coming up and Scott states, “we will pass him here.” I looked over and all gauges were perfect (185 temp, 140 trans, 12-14A/F, 55-60oil psi). Just for good measure I flip on both the radiator and transmission fans as we come up to the bed, and off we go blazing in all of our glory.
He had us about 6 car lengths and we were even speed all thru 1st. 2nd was about even with catching him slowly till top of 2nd, and we were gaining. Our motor was built for up to 6500 I was told, but our stock ECU had about a 5500 limiter. So in 3rd we started to catch him quickly and we were going for the pass within seconds. Scott asked “are we good for 4th ”? The car was on 17psi 35” tires and traveling at 82 MPH at 4k. I read all the gauges and everything still perfect and responded to Scott with “hell yeah, lets pass him!” He hit 4th and shortly there after, the cab started filling with smoke. A look at the gauges again and all was good, but we were losing power fast and we had to cut it off and roll to a stop. At MM14 we were done.
Looks as though the engine either lost a rod bearing or two, and or a piston let go. It was puking oil out all holes where it could blow out something in the hole. PCV, Dist, Oil Fill cap, etc.
We stopped efforts and called in for recovery.
While waiting, we did see both other Cherokees go buy some time later. That was good to see as we knew both had starting line issues. We looked over and also saw a mod car broken about 1/8 mile just to the side of us. He had twisted and lost a driveshaft that proceeded to take out all kinds of things under their jeep. Then about 15 minutes later a JK comes up rolling slow! He had broken off a Teraflex inner C on his Teraflex CDR60 front axle. The knuckle was just held on with 2 ratchet straps to the track bar bracket and such.
Overall it was a great time! I would have loved to have raced it further and finished or won. But this was a once in a lifetime event for me. If it wasn’t for such great and supportive companies and team members supporting our passion and pass time, we would have never had made it to this event.
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