Essentially Off Road

Every now and again a shop gets a call that can “put them on the map”, not just with their local off road crowd, but will get them widely recognized in the off road world. Recently, at Essentially Off Road we got that call from Ian Johnson, who wanted help to put together a King of the Hammers’ car that would be featured in CRAWL Magazine. As the host of Xtreme 4x4 on Spike TV and the Tech Editor of CRAWL, Ian is on a first name basis with most of the real heavy hitters in the off road world, and more importantly he has been a guy that we have seen on the trail many times at our local off road parks. I have been a friend of Ian since he started Xtreme 4x4 and I have seen him build one crazy project after another. When he rolled into the shop, one day, with a coffee in his hand and sat across from my “lovely” solid gold desk with an “idea”, I knew it was going to be a wild ride.



KOH has been called the toughest one day race in the world and it has grown from a few guys racing for fun into the rock sports event of the year. Teams work for a year building and prepping a car for a race that mixes the best high speed desert racing action with some of the toughest rock crawling trails in the country. Ian and I had talked about King of the Hammers in the past and he knew that I wanted to race “bad” but I didn’t really have the time or resources to build a car for myself. Ian had a cool idea; we would build the car at Essentially Off Road, feature it in a series of articles for CRAWL, and most importantly share the driving experience 50/50. We wanted to prove that a vehicle with a realistic budget and that used what most people would consider old technology could complete one of the toughest races in the world.


I talked with the guys at the shop and they knew that it would mean some long nights and weekends, but they also knew that this truly was a once in a lifetime chance not just for us as individuals, but for us as a shop to showcase that we could build a car that is capable of handling such a grueling off road race. That is always the way it is here, when the chips are down I know that I can count on my crew to knock it out of the park even if it is just to get a customers rig onto the trail for the weekend. We are all wheelers, and we know what it means to miss “that ride”.
It has been a great experience. A lot of work? Yes. But most important, Essentially Off Road rose to the occasion, in less that 3 months we built a full on race car and worked with some great companies along the way.

What started as an idea has become a reality. The next step is to live the dream and survive in the extreme conditions of Johnson Valley and the Hammers trails. This vehicle will be put to the ultimate test at KOH.

There is a ton of pics of the car, here on the website. Be sure to check back for updates. You can also subscribe to CRAWL Magazine or stop by the shop to pick up a copy, to read about the project. If you swing by the shop to see the car in person you may see Ian eating a donut instead of welding. Knock it out of his hand……I told him no more donuts until after the race.