For about a week, the Means Dry Lake area in the Johnson Valley OHV Area was converted into a small city during the 6th annual King of the Hammers event, an extreme off-road competition for four-wheelers. This year, however, the promoter invited motorcycles to compete as part of the event. Off-road racer Jimmy Lewis helped organize and lay out the King of Motos course, which combined both fast and technical elements of off-road racing.
Twenty-one hard-core off-roaders were invited to compete in the King of Motos, which offered a $10,000 winner-takes-all prize.
Great Britain's Graham Jarvis (88) and Kurt Caselli (66) prepare for the start.
Racers were immediately faced with this steep, rocky and loose hillclimb right after the mass start.
Caselli got off to a fast start.
Dust was a factor for many of the riders up the first hill.
Caselli zipped right up the hill with no problem.
Destry Abbott, however, got into trouble early.
Jason Smith (20) plugs away up the first hill.
Mike Slawson (307) finds the good line around Jimmy Jarrett. Slawson would go on to finish fourth.
A prosthetic left leg didn't keep Chris Ridgeway from competing, but a flat tired kept him from finishing.
Nick Burson struggled up the first hill.
Abbott makes it over the top, while Burson soon pulled out with a burned up clutch.
Woods racer Jimmy Jarrett gave the extreme desert race a try and did quite well. He was one of the six finishers.
This was just a sign of things to come.
Kyle Redmond leads Jarvis up one of the many rocky uphills.
Redmond continues to lead the way.
The race for the win was on.
Eventually, Redmond dropped his bike and Jarvis rode past him.
Jarvis pulled away when Redmond had to stop to make adjustments to his bike's throttle.
Abbott admitted afterwards that he got plenty tired, but he continued on anyway and finished a remarkable third after starting off about 12th. And he did so with a damaged rear brake pedal.
