{"id":5410,"date":"2025-11-24T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test-staging-king-of-the-hammers.pantheonsite.io\/?p=5410"},"modified":"2025-11-25T02:11:31","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T02:11:31","slug":"20-years-of-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/","title":{"rendered":"20 Years of Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-2bbb5c4aaae7224c6e144cb44137dfbf\" style=\"color:#ee9e1f\"><strong>Meet the Drivers Who Have Conquered Johnson Valley<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2007, King of the Hammers was sketched out on a napkin in a bar. What started as a 13-rig trail challenge among friends became the most brutal one-day off-road race on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those 12 founding teams (#13 volunteered to be a course marshal so we still count them)&nbsp; \u2014 now known as the&nbsp;<strong>OG13<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014 still receive a race invite every year. And every driver who wins is crowned a&nbsp;<strong>King<\/strong>, with a permanent invite to return and defend their title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past two decades, 20 races have produced just&nbsp;<strong>10 unique champions<\/strong>, all legends in their own right. Here&#8217;s the list of drivers who&#8217;ve etched their names in rock racing history:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0e6f41d68e7a202cf52ed49accb14c42\" style=\"color:#ee9e1f\"><strong>&nbsp;Kings of KOH \u2013 Year by Year<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:50%\">\n<p><strong>2007:<\/strong>\u00a0JR Reynolds &amp; Randy Slawson<br><strong>2008:<\/strong>\u00a0Shannon Campbell<br><strong>2009:<\/strong>\u00a0Jason Scherer &amp; Jason Berger<br><strong>2010:<\/strong>\u00a0Loren Healy &amp; Rodney Woody<br><strong>2011:<\/strong>\u00a0Shannon Campbell<br><strong>2012:<\/strong>\u00a0Erik Miller &amp; Robert Ruggiero<br><strong>2013:<\/strong>\u00a0Randy Slawson &amp; Michael Slawson<br><strong>2014:<\/strong>\u00a0Loren Healy &amp; Casey Trujillo<br><strong>2015:<\/strong>\u00a0Randy Slawson &amp; Michael Slawson<br><strong>2016:<\/strong>\u00a0Erik Miller<br><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:50%\">\n<p><strong>2017:<\/strong>\u00a0Shannon Campbell<br><strong>2018:<\/strong>\u00a0Jason Scherer<br><strong>2019:<\/strong>\u00a0Jason Scherer<br><strong>2020:<\/strong>\u00a0Josh Blyler<br><strong>2021:<\/strong>\u00a0Randy Slawson &amp; Dustin Emick<br><strong>2022:<\/strong>\u00a0Raul Gomez<br><strong>2023:<\/strong>\u00a0Raul Gomez<br><strong>2024:<\/strong>\u00a0JP Gomez<br><strong>2025:<\/strong>\u00a0Kyle Chaney<br><strong>2026:<\/strong>\u00a0???<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d9752fecb193fa71b61e18396d879080\" style=\"color:#ee9e1f\"><strong>&nbsp;Two Decades. One Desert. No Forgiveness.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Across 20 years, King of the Hammers has crowned champions, broken legends, and built the off-road culture from the dirt up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-b148e3b4356656a378e784a2a52a70cb\" style=\"color:#ee9e1f\">As we enter the&nbsp;<strong>20th anniversary race<\/strong>, the question isn\u2019t just&nbsp;<em>who\u2019s fast<\/em>.<br>It\u2019s&nbsp;<strong>who\u2019s ready to be remembered.<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2007, King of the Hammers was sketched out on a napkin in a bar. What started as a 13-rig trail challenge among friends became the most brutal one-day off-road race on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-20th-anniversary"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.5 (Yoast SEO v26.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>20 Years of Kings - King of the Hammers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"20 Years of Kings\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 2007, King of the Hammers was sketched out on a napkin in a bar. What started as a 13-rig trail challenge among friends became the most brutal one-day off-road race on Earth.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"King of the Hammers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/KingofTheHammers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-24T12:00:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-25T02:11:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BLOG_20YR_CHAMPION.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rory Connell\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@KingoftheHammer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@KingoftheHammer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rory Connell\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rory Connell\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/#\/schema\/person\/453e8ce304892b30499ce43890069dc9\"},\"headline\":\"20 Years of Kings\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-24T12:00:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-25T02:11:31+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/\"},\"wordCount\":247,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/BLOG_20YR_CHAMPION.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"20th Anniversary\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/kingofthehammers.com\/2025\/11\/24\/20-years-of-kings\/\",\"name\":\"20 Years of Kings - 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