The Blog of Spidertrax

Remember when King of the Hammers was a one day event? Well, you can forget about that for 2012. While the main race kicks off this Friday at 7:30am PST, the action starts TODAY with the Smittybilt Every Man Challenge. In this race, stock & modified stock vehicles get the chance to compete in the toughest one day off-road race on the planet.

As it happens, the entire week is packed with Hammers action. Of course we more than understand not everyone can spend a week out in Johnson Valley. So, with that being said, we’re very excited to share a little Facebook page we’ve been worked on over the weekend. If you’re on a desktop computer, head over to http://www.facebook.com/Spidertrax and you should see a little tab on the left called Live!. Click on that and you’ll have access to the Ultra4 live Ustream (video) and CoveritLive (text & chat) updates for the whole week. Even if you can’t make it to the Hammers, our Live! page should still get you the best seat in the house.

CoveritLive updates for the Every Man Challenge should be kicking off around 8am PST this morning. Our good friend Harry Wagner will even be riding shotgun in the helicopter to best cover today’s race. So, with plenty of time before the Super Bowl, be sure to head over to Live! on Facebook and enjoy today’s action.

So, we have ourselves a winner for the GET ME TO THE HAMMERS! giveaway of one $500 Visa gift card. Being engineers, we’re sticklers on fairness and transparency so, before we announce who won, we wanted to share how we came up with the winner.

1st – We sorted blog comments chronologically and assigned a number to each comment in that order.

2nd – We removed any duplicate entries (some people commented on other’s comments which is more than cool) and reduced them to 1 so as to count just the first comment. Also, if any existed, auto generated spam comments were also removed.

3rd – We removed any comments after the January 31st midnight deadline (sorry but we have to be fair).

4th – Now with 383 entries, we used Random.org to pick a winner (as per the rules, the winner was verified as having Liked our Facebook fan page as well).

And lucky number 305 is Charles A. Leask! Congratulations Charles for winning the $500 Visa Gift Card. Be sure to look out for a private message on Facebook from us or, if you have messaging turned off, be sure to send us a message HERE to claim your prize. Thanks to everyone who was part of this giveaway. We’re extremely excited by the number of entires and overall support. Hopefully we can do this again!

Just got this press release from the Lovell Brothers. No question the level of competition for this years King of the Hammers is simply unmatched. T minus 11 days and counting!

LOVELL BROTHERS SET TO TAKE ON KING OF THE HAMMERS
Official Press Release 28-Jan-2012

After season ending crashes for both of the team’s rock racers last year, the brothers are back and ready to take on the toughest rock race on the planet. 2012 will the longest King of the Hammers yet with 165 miles of rock crawling and desert terrain. The week long event now features several races and a chance for competitors to qualify for start positions.

“I think its great that they are letting us qualify,” comments driver Brad Lovell, “We would have won this thing 2 years ago if that was the case and it will help make a fair competition.” The team can be watched qualifying live on Ultra4racing.com/live on Tuesday, Feb 7 at roughly 4 pm PST.

For the first time, Brad and Roger will join forces for King of the Hammers. Roger adds, “Running one truck is a lot less of a headache and will allow us to better focus on winning. With the amount of experience we have racing together, it just makes sense to be in the same truck. Last month, we auctioned my entry and raised $2500 for the Blue Ribbon Coallition and others fighting to keep Johnson Valley open.”

Lovell Racing proudly welcomes back AMSOIL as their title sponsor. Brad elaborates, “I am continually impressed with the integrity and quality of AMSOIL. They are a perfect fit for our team. Combined with Nissan, BFGoodrich Tires, Torchmate, Spidertrax, and Trailready we have a strong team with lots of technology. We are also pleased to add Lincoln Welders to the team as we have always been fans of their products.”

The pair will be piloting the reinvigorated yet familiar #232 AMSOIL Torchmate rock racer. “After the wreck last year it was twisted, bowed, and crinkled,” said Brad,”We should have just cut it up and thrown it away but this truck has won just about everything but King of the Hammers and I’m attached to it.” Eight weeks of labor went into rebuilding the chassis and making improvements to the design. “We did a lot of thinking about safety after the wrecks. Neither of us want to race something we don’t feel safe in so we cut the entire roll cage out of the truck and rebuilt it with stronger material.”

In another first for the team, they will be running 39″ BFGoodrich KRT’s. “We are strong believers in 37′s but think that the 39′s will allow us some extra speed in the unending boulder fields. BFG has re-engineered a soft grippy tread compound that is really going to give us the edge.”

King of the Hammers launches the team’s 2012 racing campaign where they will tackle a variety of races. Highlights include the legendary Mint 400 in March, the 90th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb in July, and World Championship short course racing in Crandon on Labor Day. Brad will return for the 2012 TORC Season piloting the #44 AMSOIL Torchmate Nissan Frontier.

Alright, time to win some cold hard cash. We’re less than 3 weeks away from this years King of the Hammers and we know full well the budget gets tight this close to race day. Nothing’s worse than getting your rig ready only to find out there’s nothing left for food and gas. So, we’re happy to launch our GET ME TO THE HAMMERS! giveaway where one lucky person will win a $500 Visa Gift Card.

Entering is easy:

1) If you haven’t already, “Like” our Facebook fan page HERE.
-AND-
2) Leave a comment on this blog post (below).

One entry per person (multiple comments only count once, sorry guys & gals), but that’s it. The GET ME TO THE HAMMERS! giveaway ends midnight on January 31st, 2012 with the winner being announced on February 1st, 2012. Yes, this giveaway ends fast but there’s no sense in getting your gift card after the race. Best of luck and hope to see all of you on the lake bed.

This is a follow-up to our very popular "Domestic vs. Import Unit Bearings – Bearing Play Comparison" video posted back on October 15, 2009. In that video, we discussed the differences between domestic & import grade unit bearings using Kevin Sacalas’ domestic grade Spidertrax Unit Bearings for our case study.

Since that time, Kevin has now racked on over 2300 miles of extreme desert racing on these same unit bearings with his nearly 5000 lb race vehicle. So how are our unit bearings holding up? Watch the video and see for yourself.

It’s hard to imagine that this time last year we were still wiring up the Rock Bug (see “Rock Bug Weekend Update for January 24, 2009”).  Despite all of our best efforts to have the Rock Bug ready to race 2009 King of the Hammers (KOH), its highly custom Scat V4 motor decided otherwise.  Literally one day before the race, severe lack of engine performance forced driver Tracy Jordan and the Rock Bug to bow out of the 2009 KOH competition.

It was a tough blow, especially given the amount of time and energy devoted to the Rock Bug project.  There was little time to feel bad about it though as the 2009 W.E.Rock rock crawling season was about to begin.  So we were all back at it trying to make the Scat V4 motor happy.  It took us the first two W.E.Rock competitions before we were able to get the Scat V4 motor under control.  Once we did though, the fate of the Rock Bug had permanently changed. 

With a perfectly running Scat V4 engine, Tracy Jordan and the Rock Bug seemed unstoppable, taking home 1st place spots in the final two W.E.Rock competitions.  Shortly after, the 2009 W.E.Rock season ended on the highest note we could ask for. Tracy Jordan and the Rock Bug won the 2009 W.E.Rock Grand Nationals (see  “W.E.Rock 2009 Grand Nationals – Tracy Jordan & The Rock Bug on the Shootout (Part 2 of 2)”) which is one of the highest rock crawling awards of the year.  Life was good.

With a full year of rock crawling competition (and three victories) under its belt, we’re more ready then ever for this years 2010 KOH competition. Instead of rushing to put together a brand new concept vehicle, we are now able to take our time and focus on many of the smaller items we ran out of time for last year.  We spent most of this year’s  preparation on cooling (larger transmission cooler, radiator cooling fins, oil sump scoop), modifications to comply with new rules (rear light bar, bladder style fuel cell with firewall, window net changes), and small go-fast improvements (higher performance alternator, on-board tools, fresh air system).  All in all, the Rock Bug is now looking ready to race.

The Rock Bug will be back on the road tomorrow heading over to Gerald’s place for final wiring on the new electrical goodies.  After which, Tracy and the Rock Bug will be heading out to the KOH lake bed for some final tuning.  Set your calendars for February 12th, 2010 which marks this years KOH race day.  Hope to see you out on there!

 Photo Courtesy of Crawl Magazine

It’s that time of year again where new builds take form and old vehicles get overhauled, all in the name of next years competition season.  For some time now, we have been offering contingency programs that pay out cash for top place finishers.  Sure, it’s fun to race, but there’s nothing wrong with getting paid for something you love to do either.  For 2010, we have revamped our contingency programs with some great changes that make getting paid even easier.  Plus, with a 2010 King of the Hammers Grand Prize contingency pay out of $2500, this is one program you don’t want to miss!

We have two programs in place for 2010, one for King of the Hammers and one for XRRA & W.E.Rock.  Details for both programs are available under the “Terms of Business” section of the Spidertrax Store.  To save you time, here are direct links to both programs:

Spidertrax 2010 King of the Hammers Contingency Program

Spidertrax 2010 XRRA/W.E.Rock Contingency Program

In summary, the newly revamped programs improve on those past in two key areas.  First, we now give the option of running 3 different size Spidertrax decals, namely 12”, 18”, or 24” long. This allows the freedom of running the decal that fits your vehicle best.  Of course, the larger the sticker the higher the payout. Second, vehicles are now required to run just one Spidertrax branded product to qualify.  This way, you can be running just a Spidertrax Pro Series Knuckle set and still be part of the contingency program.

As if that wasn’t enough to get you pumped for next years competitions, we have something else to share.   Crawl Magazine just released their latest print issue (Issue #19) that has a great article in it called, you guessed it, “Get Paid to Race!”.  They asked us (Spidertrax), Ballistic Fabrication, & Pit Bull Tires questions about sponsorship and Crawl was kind enough to post their entire “Get Paid to Race!” print article right here for FREE!  It’s a great read, so be sure to download your free copy today.  If you like what you see, check out the rest of Issue #19.  It’s sure to impress.

 Download the full print article “Get Paid to Race!”, courtesy of Crawl Magazine.