King of the Hammers 2012 is a wrap, and BDS Rep Jason Shellhaas made it back from the west coast with plenty of stories to tell…
“Well another King of the Hammers (KOH) has come and gone, and with it, a new champion has been crowned. Congrats to Eric Miller on bringing home the crown this year. 2012 marked the 6th running of KOH out in the Johnson Valley SRVA, and BDS Suspension’s first trip out to the lakebed to witness the spectacle first hand. Over the years since its inception, this event has exploded in popularity as big budget builds and backyard creations compete head-to-head on a growling course of wide open desert racing and extreme rock crawling. It’s 9 days of mayhem stuffed full of UTV racing, an invite-only motorcycle race that included running Backdoor downhill, and the first ever Everyman Challenge, which allowed basically stock Jeeps to take a shot at off-road greatness. To cap off the week long of excitement is the KOH race during the day on Friday.
For this year, BDS teamed up with Team Desert Concepts out of Hesperia, CA sponsoring the IFS race buggy #4454, driven by JT Stephens. The rig features a 670HP stroked LS3, TH400 tranny, Atlas 3.0 t-case, custom 10” billet front diff with RCVs, custom 14-bolt rear, center mounted A-arm front suspension, and triangulated 4-link rear, and rolls on 42” BFG Krawlers on 20” Forged Walker Evans beadlocks.
Over 30,000 people made it out to watch as over 150 teams entered rigs in the toughest one day off-road race on the planet. Team Desert Concepts was putting together a great run until steering issues with the hydraulic ram forced them to pull out due to safety concerns midway through the 2nd lap of this growling 2 lap race. While it’s not the finish the Team Desert Concepts was hoping for, they had a hell of a race and we’re excited to see what the rest of the season brings.
All in all, it was an amazing event. An amazing amount of people made the journey out into the desert to check out the racing and talk to vendors. We had a great opportunity working with our local distributor Off-Road Warehouse to talk to customers and promote our brand. A big thanks to all the guys from ORW and Team Desert Concepts…”