Side-By-Sides Draw Huge Crowds At 2023 King Of The Hammers UTV Rock Race

The epic desert fest known as King of the Hammers returned to Johnson Valley OHV Area this year for two more weeks of hardcore off-road racing. After venturing out into the cold to watch the same event last year, I knew at least a little bit more of what to expect this time around when I received an invitation from Can-Am to check out Thursday’s UTV Hammers Championship race, which combines high-speed desert running with some of the gnarliest rock-crawling known to man.

Side-by-sides might sound less intimidating than the unlimited 4400-class Ultra4 trucks that made King of the Hammers famous, but keep in mind that the Miller Brothers set out last year to pit UTVs against unlimited trucks and prove to the world what a prepped Can-Am can do. And the world clearly took notice, as the traffic headed into Johnson Valley this year started building up before I even rolled east from Victorville, California, with the sun starting to peek over the desert horizon.

After watching maybe 40 out of a total of 107 competitors entered in the UTV Hammers Championship—a huge number, to say the least—we jumped back in the Maverick and sprinted over to the canyon known as Turkey Claw to catch some on-course racing action. Up among the fans, even this early in the morning, the popularity of side-by-sides as off-roading toys for the general public reared up again, since only the most rugged trucks reached the same viewpoints as the purpose-built machines.

This year, I knew to use OnX as my main map for getting around King of the Hammers in the hopes of avoiding so many missed viewpoints as the year before. I made sure to download an offline map before getting anywhere near Johnson Valley, since the cell reception typically fades and then dies out 100% for most of the event.

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