King of the Hammers is, for lack of a better word, batshit. For those who've never heard of it, it's an off-road race in California's Johnson Valley, and marries rock crawling with flat-out open desert racing. There's nothing else on the planet like King of the Hammers.
And for years and years, it's been dominated—absolutely dominated—by full-on race-prepped, incredibly costly buggies and trophy trucks with 1,000 horsepower V8s. Why? Because that's what you need to have when you're sending it off a sheer rock face and into a long desert section that'll see you clip 100+ mph. Did I mention sending it off sheer cliffs?
But in the last few years, UTVs have become to make their presence known. They hadn't won anything but their classes, but the tech and horsepower wars between Can-Am and Polaris have been absolutely stunning, with the two going head-to-head at King of the Hammers, as well as Baja and Dakar. But again, neither has won anything but their UTV classes.
That is until this year when a Can-Am Maverick R not only beat all of its UTV foes but everything else on the entire grid. It was, and is, a stunning upset. One that'll have folks talking for the rest of the year until next year's race.
I'm stunned.
Kyle Chaney was the man behind the wheel of the Can-Am Maverick R, along with long-time Can-Am veteran Terry Madden, and who took the machine to the podium in the 4400 Unlimited Class, the highest of the race. And not only did Chaney and Madden beat out the rest of the field in their Maverick R, but they absolutely obliterated the competition, beating out the 2nd place finisher—off-road legend Robbie Gordon—by a whopping 30 minutes.
For perspective, that's as if Marc Marquez beat the rest of the MotoGP field by a full minute.
“We drove our best and my crew put everything they had into this," said Chaney after the race, adding, "I have to thank Can-Am and CT Race Worx for building this car for us to battle against all the top guys in the 4400 race. We picked some good lines and Terry was awesome with the navigation. The third lap was crazy, we had no idea where we were going. There were no trails, we just had to pick our lines as we went and stay close to the checkpoints. We did our best to take care of the car all day, but you know, it’s a Can-Am, it never quits!”
The Maverick R was pretty much stock, apart from some small chassis adjustments to fit a set of 37-inch tires, along with the required safety systems and equipment. But the Can-Am's drivetrain remained the stock 240 horsepower turbocharged unit that you, me, or damn-near anyone can walk into a dealership, plop down $40,000, and walk out with.
Again, that's impressive as hell. And in a field that's known to be as ruthlessly on-the-ball as the folks who run King of the Hammers, I'll reiterate my stunned observation from earlier. I mean, these folks live, breathe, and sweat the desert air and sand of the Johnson Valley. So for a nearly-stock Maverick R to come in and dominate in the way they did, you've got to give credit where credit is due.
But they're not done yet. Can-Am's next stop is the San Felipe 250 where they'll have to face off against its arch-rival: Polaris. And Polaris knows a thing or two about that race.
