KOH: Beyond the Starting Line
Every January, Johnson Valley fills up with thousands of off-road trucks that never race a single lap — and yet still define the event. Prerunners. Chase trucks. Rock Crawlers, Support vehicles. Camp trucks. Daily drivers that get absolutely punished for weeks straight in the desert.
That’s KOH.
While Ultra4’s official race schedule shifts year to year, the heart of King of the Hammers stays the same. The desert gets used hard. Miles stack up fast. And suspension is tested as it should be.
King of the Hammers
If you walk through Hammertown during Desert Week, you’ll see a familiar type of truck everywhere.
Tacomas. Rangers. Full-size trucks. Garage builds that look like race trucks but still have license plates. Many of them were inspired by desert classes — budget-minded, production-based builds focused on reliability, suspension geometry, and desert performance.
Even when those classes aren’t racing, the influence is obvious.
These trucks aren’t showpieces. They’re driven to work, driven to the desert, loaded with gear, and then driven hard all weekend.
Some are former race trucks. Some are future race trucks. Some will never race at all — and that’s the point. This is where long travel suspension actually earns its keep.
During KOH, trucks rack up more real-world abuse than most see in a year. High-speed chop down Boone Road. Whoops. Endless dirt miles. Long days behind the wheel. This is where suspension quality matters more than lap times.
Dirt King's long travel wasn’t built just for race day. It’s built for everything around it. The miles before, the miles after, and the terrain most people actually drive.
That’s why Dirt King suspension products show up all over Johnson Valley during KOH, whether there’s a number panel on the door or not. The same principles that make a suspension work in a race environment make it better everywhere else: control, durability, and confidence at speed.
King of the Hammers is still special, even when certain classes sit out a year.
Because the desert doesn’t care what’s on the schedule.
And the trucks that show up still need to survive it.
- Ted Livingston
