WIDIA Sponsors King of the Hammers

Extreme Challenges. Extreme Results. This event’s first sponsor outside of the racing industry brought powerful tooling support to extreme desert racing’s premier event.

On February 3, more than 40,000 racers and spectators descended upon the desert of Johnson Valley, CA for the 2013 Griffin King of the Hammers presented by Nitto Tire. Considered the ultimate desert race, the King of the Hammers (KOH) is an event for custom-built vehicles combining high-speed racing across the desert floor with extreme rock climbing at intervals along the way.

http://youtu.be/q-tFla2dcJ8

Starting with only 13 competitors in 2007, KOH grew to 135 competing teams in 2012. Extending its message of “Extreme Challenges, Extreme Results,” WIDIA Products Group (Latrobe, PA) joined the event this year as its first non-racing industry sponsor.

For KOH Week, the city of “Hammertown” came into being on the desert floor. WIDIA exhibited in space C-8 in “The Big Tent” in the center of Hammertown (with an aisle dubbed “WIDIA Way”), which was open to drivers, crew, and spectators 9 am to 6 pm daily from February 2-8.

The Ultimate Desert Race
Dubbed the toughest one-day off-road race on the planet, KOH has become so popular that a whole race circuit was created with Ultra4-class racing through a Pro Series and Regional Series, designed to produce an Eastern, Western, and National Champion.

The defining characteristic of Ultra4 class is that all cars must be capable of 4-wheel drive. Beyond that, the class is unlimited, meaning all cars are custom-fabricated and come in all shapes and sizes, capable of speeds over 100 mph and containing gear ratios as low as 100 to 1 for technical rock crawling.

Competitors had to complete the 165 mile course in less than 14 hours and pass through seven checkpoints, all while staying within 100 ft of the course centerline. Each Ultra4-class car is unique, attempting to straddle the line between heavy and fast for desert racing and light and nimble for rock racing.