‘Guns, Beer, Titties, Freedom’: Inside the World’s Toughest Off-Road Race

A ample dust unreality hovers implicit the different wide Johnson Valley successful Southern California. Just past the municipality of Lucerne Valley, a crippled of nationalist onshore is filled with each mode of off-road vehicles: ungraded bikes, first-gen Toyota trucks with welded rotation cages, brand-new Broncos, tiny four-wheelers piloted by children, and UTVs. RV campsites sprawl into the godforsaken connected either side, a impermanent operation houses a barroom and restaurant, and the roadworthy ends astatine a vendor colony that could rival a tiny region fair.

Welcome to Hammertown, the impermanent godforsaken metropolis that springs up each January for 16 days for an off-road contention bid known arsenic King of the Hammers. Think Burning Man meets Mad Max, but sponsored by Monster Energy.

Having precocious completed its 20th year, Hammers started arsenic a contention betwixt 13 friends and present comprises a bid of races featuring everything from ungraded bikes to VW Bugs to million-dollar trophy trucks. Most notably, it’s the birthplace of the Ultra4 series, which includes the Race of Kings—commonly called the world's toughest single-day off-road race—which combines 100-mph-plus godforsaken racing with highly method stone crawling. At 245 miles, this year’s contention was the astir hard to date. Only 2 teams finished nether the 14-hour clip allotment. The lawsuit present draws implicit 80,000 attendees, who tin acquisition wide admittance tickets starting astatine $100, and features astir 750 racers, some nonrecreational and amateur, from each implicit the world. People tin ticker astatine location too: Organizers accidental that 1.2 cardinal viewers watched online this year.

As King of the Hammers enters its 3rd decade, it’s wide however acold off-roading has travel from the days of “shit-box” trucks covered successful dents and stickers to logo-emblazoned purpose-built rigs easy costing into the hundreds of thousands. Ultra4 races hap internationally, and the off-road conveyance marketplace is valued astatine much than $22 billion, according to Grand View Research.

Beyond the sponsor banners and factory-backed rigs, galore vehicles treble arsenic governmental statements. They person customized vinyl wraps, antenna-mounted flags, and stickered tailgates. While the Stars and Stripes are displayed astir prominently, Gadsden flags are common; “1776,” “We the People,” and Second Amendment slogans besides look regularly. Trump flags are present, though acold less than 1 mightiness expect fixed the setting. One says “Guns, Beer, Titties, Freedom.” The personalization of vehicles points to a recurring theme—a preoccupation with autonomy—set against 1 of the largest unfastened off-highway conveyance areas successful the country. King of the Hammers isn't conscionable astir who crosses the decorativeness enactment first, it's astir a assemblage that returns each wintertime to interruption things, hole them, and interruption them again.