Champion Of The Toughest Off Road Race In America Is A Wyomingite

Wyoming's own Jeremy Jones, of Laramie, is King of the Hammers. 

King of the Hammers is an off-road race that's about as tough as they come.

Jones is a chiropractor from Laramie Wyoming

He drove, correction, PLOWED AND BANGED his Class 4800 Barnik Motorsports Legends race car through a 143-mile course of open desert, rocky canyons, and sedan-sized boulders.

He managed to take the overall win at the 2023 4WP Every Man Challenge in Johnson Valley, California in February.

ROAD? We don't need no stinking ROAD!

The route, not round is filled with boulders named after hammers. That's why the winner can claim the title of “King of the Hammers.”

It was Jones along with team member and navigator Dan Young, from the Laramie Fire Department.

They raced 4 hours, 42 minutes, 52 seconds. That placed them about 20 minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.

The Every Man Challenge attracts more than 80,000 race teams, vendors, and fans every year.

Despite the hard terrain, there are places where drivers reach speeds of 115 miles per hour.

In other places, they can be seen twisting through gullies, around, and even over boulders.

It's so hard drivers feel as if they are getting hammered. Hence the name.

Before the race teams are allowed up to a week to learn the course.

But, according to Jones, some just never get the hang of it.

“The race itself has — about 25% to 30% of the cars that start it, finish it,” Young said. “And that has to do with the quality of prep that they do on their race car, quality of the parts on the car in general, quality of pre-running and notes. If you didn’t take a note where something is in the desert, and we took a note and we know to slow down, we take our time, slow down through it and are able to cruise through it. If they don’t have that marked, they may not slow down enough and damage their car, wreck the car.” (Laramie Boomerang).