Besting terrain that defeated nearly 100 other drivers and competing in the race for the first time, Maxxis’ sponsored driver Hunter Miller won the 2020 Can-Am UTV King of the Hammers Race Presented by HCR. Fellow Maxxis driver Kyle Chaney took second place. Miller and Chaney were part of a Can-Am sweep of the UTV podium and were among 33 drivers who finished the race out of 131 who started.
Miller’s brother Cody also placed in the top ten, finishing ninth after qualifying fastest, with Hunter qualifying second.
Grassroots driver Scott LeSage finished a very respectable 12th riding Maxxis, and SX legend Jeremy McGrath, in his first King of the Hammers, was 29th. McGrath rode the newly released Kawasaki KRX 1000 nearly stock, with only a few slight modifications for safety.
All five drivers trusted Maxxis’ Roxxzilla tires, which are especially well-suited to the diverse set of conditions found at KOH, to take them to the finish line. Both the Miller brothers and LeSage rode 32-in. Roxxzillas, while Chaney and McGrath chose 35-in. in order to more easily handle the technical, rocky section of the course.
The brutal route, which Hunter Miller and co-driver Chad Hughes completed in 4:29:44.201, featured more than 140 miles of the roughest of both desert and rocky terrain. “It’s the absolute hardest race I’ve ever done, and I’ve been racing for 25 years now. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Next to the day my wife said ‘yes,’ this is the best day of my life,” Hunter Miller told UTVunderground.
Speaking from the podium, Chaney recounted the challenges he and co-driver Scottie Lawrence encountered, which included manually righting the vehicle at one point with a resulting injury to Chaney’s leg; a leak which meant that Chaney and Lawrence rode the last 13 miles with no transmission fluid; and a loss of power steering due to a broken fuse, repaired with a solution improvised on the spot. Chaney finished a little more than 2 minutes and 40 seconds behind Hunter Miller.
The UTV race was just the first phase of KOH for McGrath’s co-driver Brendan Thompson, who is also racing the 4400 class later this week.
Link: Maxxis
