Race Recap: 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers, and notes from a dry lake bed [w/video]

Jonathon Ramsey — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:46:00 EST

It was a local guy from 90 miles away who beat them all...

The image above shows 129 Ultra4 racing rigs lined up for the start of the 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers. In case you missed Part One that explains why they're there and why they might be doing the most difficult and absurd one-day off-road race in the world, check it out. After a week of races in other events and two days of qualifying for the big show, the men and women who made it in were lined up to do three laps of a course around the 140,000-acre Johnson Valley OHV area in California's San Bernardino County.

Lap one was 52 miles through the desert, lap two was 63-miles long and lap three was 69-miles long, those last circuits going through some of the toughest rock trails - known collectively as The Hammers - on the planet. Drivers from 12 countries, trophy truck champions who've come from Paris-Dakar and the Baja 1000, guys who had spent big-money sums like $250,000 on their rigs were lined up to win, or just try and make it back before the 14-hour cutoff time.

It was a local guy from 90 miles away who beat them all...

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Race Recap: 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers, and notes from a dry lake bed [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Garage419 Invitational wrap-up

Alex Nunez — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:03:00 EST

Filed under: Etc.

So, exactly a week ago, I was in Mt. Kisco at Grand Prix New York for the first annual (hopefully) Garage419 Invitational. Put simply, it was great. Big props to Matt Farah and the crew at Next New Networks for organizing the whole shindig, which put a big, fun group of guys (and one gal) together for an afternoon of karting and comraderie for a good cause -- Racing 4 Research and the Children's Tumor Foundation. The event raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $9,000. If you missed out on donating, and want to add to the tally, you can still do so by clicking here. Just because the event's over doesn't mean the fundraising's stopped.

Farah had some fun with the field, making sure the course was nice and wet during qualifying to ensure that slippery fun would be had by all. After qualifying, we all lined up for a Le Mans-style start and proceeded to race for the next hour and ten minutes. I was paired up David Noto, an all-around good guy who's also fast in a go-kart. Together, we finished 15th out of the 26-kart grid, thanks in large part to David ripping off very fast laps (in the 1:01 range) during the final leg, in which he picked up two positions all by himself. (Your humble correspondent's fastest lap was around 1:06.) You can see the final rankings over at Garage 419.com, and if you follow the jump , you can watch G419's 2-part extravaganza along with a third video produced by Team Polizei's Alex Roy and co.

Thanks again to Garage419 for having us, and thanks to all who donated to the cause!

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Garage419 Invitational wrap-up originally appeared on Autoblog on Sun, 02 Nov 2008 13:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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