KOH LIVE

DNF. But, starter issues happen. That car was one of the top contenders.

Right, which is exactly my point. This shit about how you "hafta have" a half million bucks in your car is nonsense. Meanwhile, the 4468 starts dead last and finishes tenth. That car is ... what? Five, six seasons old?

 
No matter how much $$$ they have into their race rig you have to figure all the $$$ that goes into getting there and all the support and race prep. A well planned and built rig cost $$$. Driving experience cost $$$. Getting all that together on the lake bed cost a shit load of $$$. My .02 worth.
 
Right, which is exactly my point. This shit about how you "hafta have" a half million bucks in your car is nonsense. Meanwhile, the 4468 starts dead last and finishes tenth. That car is ... what? Five, six seasons old?




I don't disagree but I think it's a little bit of an outliner. Would it be a podium finisher? Likely not but cheaper cars are definetly capable of finishing the race in the allotted time.

As more and more people spend the $ on their cars (not really sure what could possibly cost $300k+), the $30k buggy becomes less and less competitive for a top finish even though it is perfectly capable of finishing in time
 
I'm curious, how have the total finish times (e.g. run time) for the top cars changed over the years? I don't know, and am too lazy to go searching for the data, but my impression is certainly that it's getting faster. The average speeds in the open desert sections are definitely way higher than they used to be.
 
Loren said it best: "KOH is such a crap shoot". And not to discount that at all, because he is right. It takes an almost perfect day to get a win. But, all of these people going out and building fancy "fast" new badass buggies for U4 got slapped in the face by Miller Motorsports. A freshened up, well sorted out race buggy that the driver knows inside and out took the top spot after staring back in the pack all while "running at 70%" according to Erik in the post race interview.

The budget for a high dollar racer is nice, but not always beneficial. Loren is the perfect example from this year. Killed a sweet ass engine in a new high dollar solid axle Jimmys buggy and still had issues out of his well sorted out IFS racer.
 
I'm curious, how have the total finish times (e.g. run time) for the top cars changed over the years? I don't know, and am too lazy to go searching for the data, but my impression is certainly that it's getting faster. The average speeds in the open desert sections are definitely way higher than they used to be.

Shouldn't matter. They might be gaining a few minutes out in the open desert, but it's easy to lose hours in the rocks. All comes down to traffic and luck.
 
The course changes, so would be hard to compare times year-to-year. Dave Cole makes it no secret that he likes seeing only a handful finish.
 
Funny how the ifs vs solid axle talk goes away every year after a solid axle wins
 
Funny how the ifs vs solid axle talk goes away every year after a solid axle wins

Fact: You can't win KOH without IFS. You just can't be competitive. Look at Bailey Campbell. Got smoked by her dad, because he runs an IFS car, and she doesn't.
 
Fact: You can't win KOH without IFS. You just can't be competitive. Look at Bailey Campbell. Got smoked by her dad, because he runs an IFS car, and she doesn't.
damn you and your truthiness
 
I'm not sure of the exact mileage this year but every year prior the course has gotten longer. So even though the cars have higher top speeds, the winner's overall time has increased.

An IFS car hasn't won since 2011 so a solid axle car can be very competitive and win. If I'm not mistaken, IFS has only won twice in 10 years and both of those were Shannon Campbell.
 
He would have won another year as well, if he knew how to read a gps.

I have a ton of respect for the Miller team. They know the sport and Eric can flat out drive.

That said, he did admit to a new car in the works at the moment. No idea what it is but the sport is constantly evolving and getting more expensive. That is how all forms of racing go when there are no limits. I'm not a fan of that.
 
Right, which is exactly my point. This shit about how you "hafta have" a half million bucks in your car is nonsense. Meanwhile, the 4468 starts dead last and finishes tenth. That car is ... what? Five, six seasons old?


I fully believe the difference between 10th and 1st is exponentially greater than the difference between last and 10th
 
I fully believe the difference between 10th and 1st is exponentially greater than the difference between last and 10th

That is gibberish.
 
Just like any racing. Seconds are cheap. Tenths of seconds are expensive.

The difference between a suspension that will long travel and absorb at high speed and one that will dot he same consistently and reliably without failure is huge.
 
FYI the emergence of some of the Ultra4 crowd at Line Mountain has also caused some major shifts and changes in the way racing works there as well. They completely revamped the rulebooks last year in order to compensate for guys like Miller showing up and spanking everybody. A lot of irritated folks who liked it "the ways its always been".

This frankly is why Bro Lite is so awesome.
 
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the best comment this year was when Jessi was being interviewed on stage and she said something about winning if she had not broke etc and the British guy said: ya If, Why and Somehow and then laughed..

anyone can say if this did not happen, if I had IFS, etc.. but until you actually race and all the stars align it is still a crap shoot
 
Loren said it best: "KOH is such a crap shoot". And not to discount that at all, because he is right. It takes an almost perfect day to get a win. But, all of these people going out and building fancy "fast" new badass buggies for U4 got slapped in the face by Miller Motorsports. A freshened up, well sorted out race buggy that the driver knows inside and out took the top spot after staring back in the pack all while "running at 70%" according to Erik in the post race interview.

The budget for a high dollar racer is nice, but not always beneficial. Loren is the perfect example from this year. Killed a sweet ass engine in a new high dollar solid axle Jimmys buggy and still had issues out of his well sorted out IFS racer.

Not that it caused his race, but Loren has said in the past that he prefers his solid axle cars to the IFS car.

While it is a crap shoot, I believe that seat time, testing/tuning, and comfort in the rig play as big a part as most other things.

I was hoping Tom Wayes would make another run at the podium. He was fast until he killed the car. Also seemed like there was more axle carnage then I recall in years past.

Also found it interesting that many of top finishers were running Nitto/Toyo tires. Could have been law of averages there, though.

On a slightly different note, I was impressed that a 2 week old, basically stock Yamaha finished 7th in the UTV race.
 
Just like any racing. Seconds are cheap. Tenths of seconds are expensive.

The difference between a suspension that will long travel and absorb at high speed and one that will dot he same consistently and reliably without failure is huge.


Which is why there were 70 DNFs.

I get the point you're trying to make, but it doesn't seem consistent with the realities of KOH. You need a car that performs well enough in the desert, but nobody is taking the podium based on their top speed out on the flats. They're more likely to yard sale their shit across the desert.
 
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