Our 2026 KOH race started with getting everything unloaded, setting up the garage and prepping the car for prerunning.
Prerunning started with going down Aftershock a few times, taking notes and marking our lines on the map. The car and the kid did great in the rocks with no issues. The next day we continued prerunning by hitting the desert section and some of the connecting trails. On the final day of prerunning we ran the remainder of the desert section the Ford Arch and the short course a few times. We preran the whole Youth 1000 race course and got some good notes for the race. The car was cleaned up and prepped for tech and contingency.
The next event was tech and contingency. We got lined up early and worked our way through the process of tech. The car passed all stations with no issues and we headed back to prep the car for the UTV race.
On race day we got up early took the car over to staging and waited for things to get started. The course workers let everyone know it's time to start moving to the start/ finish so we start the car, get buckled in and head that way. 2 minutes after the last adult 4900 car left the line the Youth 1000 cars start getting the green flag. We got the green flag, took the holeshot and headed into the desert towards Remote Pit 2. We passed through RP2 and headed towards Aftershock with no issues. Hunter made a few passes on some stuck/ broken cars in the rocks, got through Aftershock and headed back into the desert.
During the desert section the steering started to get a lot of play in it. Hunter was working real hard to control the car but we were still moving at a good pace and he was making it work. About 10 miles from Hammertown we lost steering on the left side, pulled off course and stopped. I got out of the car and saw that the left tie-rod came unscrewed from the rack. I got the tool bag and fixed it while Hunter took pictures. While putting it back together I noticed that the steering rack was damaged internally allowing 2-3" of free play left and right. With everything back together we did a trail alignment and got back to racing. Hunter was able to drive the car at a decent pace all the way back to Hammertown and through the finish line to complete the 2026 King of the Hammers Youth 1000 race.
Overall it was another great race.
