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King of Hammers 2024

  • 5 min read

 

KOH is billed as the world’s toughest single day race.
While some argue that other races like the Baja 1000 are tougher, we won’t dispute with either opinion.
KOH has a way of wearing you down like no other race can.
Perhaps it is the drastic weather changes, wind storms, mud, dust, nearly impassable "roads" or the fact that it is so remote that makes it so tough.

We believe it’s the sum of all of those things that makes it so tough.
At Pro Eagle we believe in doing what is tough. We believe pushing past limits and finding new ones, as it makes us better people and helps us build better products.
We wouldn't go to Hammers every year if it didn't make us better.

 

                         
Pro Eagle has been attending KOH every year since 2015. We are the only jack company there to support our customers.
We are the only jack company testing for weak points in our jacks, aiming to improve them.
We are the only jack company that offering service and rebuilds for racers, support crews and everyday users and we do it free of charge.
We are the only jack company organizing fun competitions like the Pit Crew Challenge
to bring the community together and reward the sometimes-forgotten crews that keep the vehicles moving forward.
                                  
                          
      
Since much of the event takes place on shared land between the military and BLM, this year’s event was moved up
a little earlier on the calendar to work around some “war games” that the military had planned.
As if the desert wasn’t inhospitable enough, moving it earlier in the year means more unpredictable weather and that is exactly what we got.
We had anticipated the colder weather and introduced some new swag this year including a "mechanics jacket", hoodies, sweaters and more.
We still have a few available on our website for those who couldn’t get them in person.
     
     
We have handpicked a few teams that we work with directly for jack testing.
These teams provide us with valuable feedback on not only how the jacks perform
under adverse conditions but also ideas for features to include in a new generation of jacks or even new products entirely.
Many of these teams saw success like Kyle Chaney who won overall in the UTV Desert race, overall in
the UTV rock race and was the first physical vehicle to cross the line in the 4400 Race of Kings.
A few infractions bumped Kyle down to 8th in the Race of Kings which is still impressive in a race dominated
by 800+ HP trucks with 40” tall tires and nearly 3 feet of wheel travel.
The Factory Polaris race team also saw great success with 1st and 2nd in class in the UTV
desert race and 3rd overall in the UTV Rock race in their stock Pro R driven by Brock Heager.
  

   
There were a lot of UTVs that started the Rock Race with our Phoenix jack onboard.
Some of the most notable were Jeremy McGrath and Brian Deegan.
We even had the 4800 truck of Dustin Isenhour that was carrying our trail kit onboard.
That kit includes a Power Tank Powershot which increases the lift capacity of our Phoenix jack to over 3000 lbs.
One of the biggest supporters of Pro Eagle is the team of Cody and Hunter Miller.
While both drivers suffered major part failures in their respective races, they built and were pitting for 5 other vehicles.
That meant that their garage was servicing 9 total race vehicles as well as their pre-run vehicles.
They had 6 Pro Eagle 3 ton jacks being used in their garage at all times.
It was quite a sight to see
    
 
In addition to the support and feedback from individual race teams, one of our biggest customers has been BFGoodrich Tires.
They have been using our jacks in their pits at every KOH race in the last 10+ years in addition to their pits in Baja and other races across the US.
Our relationship with BFG went from them being a great customer to a new partner as we announced
that starting later this year all of our Off Road Jacks will come with mini BFG tires.
We made the announcement in our booth Saturday evening with all of the BFG pit support team, factory BFG drivers and multiple members of the off road media on hand.
We are looking forward to launching this product later this year and for those wondering, yes,
you will be able to get the tires separately for the Pro Eagle jacks that you already have.
  

     
Not only that, but we also had 3 new exciting products launched at KOH!:
        



    
As mentioned earlier we host a Pit Crew Competition in our booth every year.
We were asked by Dave Cole and his team to bring the Pit Comp to KOH 8 years ago and we have done it every year since.
We love the opportunity it gives to the often forgotten crews to shine in front of a large audience.
This year we changed it up a bit by providing the vehicles for the crews to work on. Because KOH is so packed full of events every day,
it is getting harder for teams to send their race vehicles to the competition when they have either been qualifying/racing all
day or have to be at the start line early the following day for racing/qualifying.
This year we provided two identically equipped Polaris Pro R vehicles with 35” BFG tires that people had to lift to full drop,
remove and replace a tire and dump 10 gallons of fuel
.
After the competition we invited Blake Wilkey and RJ Anderson to do it blindfolded.
We gave each a Rugged Radios headset and a crew member spoke to them through a handheld walkie and gave them directions.
It was a blast to watch and Blake backed up his fast time on the regular competition with the fastest time blindfolded.
      
     
During the 2 weeks on the lakebed we changed the fluid on 53 jacks. We replaced small parts on 10-15 jacks.
We replaced the pumps on 8 jacks. We were also able to help a few people with other brand jacks when it was possible to modify their jack to utilize our parts.
Some may ask why we would share that information. We say we have nothing to hide! We are the ONLY jack company doing this for customers.
We have a product that quite honestly is the first to get abused and the last one to see any maintenance.
Because of that, things wear out or just break. Our engineer was the one doing all of the repairs and all of that
firsthand experience is what we use to make them better.
Since we manufacture in-house, it allows us to take that knowledge of what happened and build it differently so it doesn’t happen again.

As the week came to a close we couldn’t help but reflect on the great times we had.
KOH isn’t for the tame at heart. There was lots of chaos, broken hearts, broken bones, broken and destroyed vehicles.
After all of that, there wasn’t a single person who isn’t already looking forward to next year.
Catch us at the Mint 400 next month!