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.