Not knowing ANYTHING about KoH other than what I’d read on Pirate, I really didn’t know what I needed. I knew from driving the car that 1st gear was way too long and I often stalled the car just trying to load on the trailer, so I ordered a GYTR transmission kit which would lower first gear 70%, 2nd gear 30%, and I believe 3-5th gears 10%. I also had Yamaha put in a new clutch (the car was still under warranty at the time so I was trying to keep it that way). I also purchased a factory UTV 3/4 UMHV skidplate, and 30x10x14 ITP UltraCross Rs. We stocked up on spare axle shafts and tie rods (I’d already broken one rear axle shaft) and we called it good and ready to race with a fresh new wrap displaying our Texas pride. Unbeknownst to me, 30s was a TERRIBLE call, as was having Yamaha install the GYTR kit.
King of the Hammers 2019 was CRAZY, with the start of the trip being pouring down rain and mud, turning into nice weather for a couple days for our race, and then snowing a couple days after that before being nice again. We showed up, and immediately went to go tech the car. We had a couple minor issues (fire extinguishers out of date and dzsus on the roof instead of bolts) but other than that we were good to go. Being that Lance and I had never raced there before, and didn’t know anyone else racing it was a weird feeling not knowing what to do. We did a little bit of prerunning but I was terrified of breaking the car before we got to race, so I didn’t qualify. We started the UTV race WAY in the back (I think like 3rd from last) next to a guy we met and ended up being friends with (Tony McAbee, also in a YXZ at the time). We took off, and almost immediately started passing people on the lakebed. We could see their cars bucking and bouncing and we literally couldn’t feel anything. Those King IBPs had us “floating on a cloud of titties” for real. We actually had the debate during one whoops section where we passed at least 15-20 UTVs that we might be running too fast, but the car felt great so I stayed in the throttle. We passed one of the Greaves in a YXZ coming into Cougar Buttes, which was pretty cool but then immediately got into a major traffic jam with UTVs rolled over everywhere. I made my first critical racing error by getting impatient and decided to back up a very steep vertical ledge to get over to a bypass trail. It took everything the car had, but we eventually made it up and around and we thought we were good to go until suddenly I had no clutch, no gears, nothing. We were dead in the water watching the traffic jam clear up quickly and all the people we passed earlier went cruising by. We waited about 30 minutes, and the car had clutch again, so we decided to continue on to pit 1B. About 14 miles out of Cougar, the car made a terrific clatter and we had absolutely nothing. Everything was neutral including reverse. We spent the next 7 hours waiting for the Ultra4 sweepers to come pick us up and drag us back to where our pit crew was waiting. Afterwards, I went and talked to Tubeworks (who developed the GYTR kit for Yamaha) and they said vertical reversing is almost always fatal for a YXZ transmission as it completely empties the gearbox of all transmission fluid. They were awesome enough to offer to take the transmission and rebuild it again at a greatly discounted price and with all the tubeworks goodies they could throw at it. As we suspected, the gears had let go, and the clutch was in pieces. We reinstalled the freshly rebuilt TW trans (they had it back to us in a day!!!!!) and went out exploring and spectating for the rest of Hammers week.
