Marlin Crawler 7th Annual KOH Thread (Feb 2013) [MANY PICS]

[BigMike]

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Ariel footage provided by two or three helicopters.



You can see from all the shadows above that safety this year was even better than the last: Spectators were restricted to a very safe distance away from the course.

There were still a bunch of rigs to go!

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Here is our good friends from Slee Off Road and their Team Home Grown Racing buggy



This rig stalled out right after it left the starting line. They left the rig sort-of on the course until a bunch of spectators ran out to help push it to safety where the driver & co-driver were able to figure it out and get it back in motion   



Our buggy awaits our 114th position start 

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Check out this guy's telescopic lens



And this thing looked like some Hollywood production camera

[*** YELLER ***]

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Here goes Eric "Mustard Dog" and co-driver John "Flash" Blanton, starting in position 100! Good luck guys!!

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Here is the full bodied 1st gen Toyota that gained much popularity from last year's KOH!

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One thing I have not mentioned up until this point is that our team driver, John "desertoy" James, had become sick on Wednesday and wasn't feeling any better on Thursday. By race day Friday, we were still waiting to see if his condition would improve enough to race.

The rules state that the driver must either start the race or finish the race in order to qualify.

It turned out that John was still under the weather so our co-driver Mike Hendricks of Hendrix Motorsports drove at the start of the race, Mark Smith co-piloted, and our Team Driver John James was to finish the race.   

Mike is the one who built our chassis, knows these trails extremely well, and has been involved in racing for many, many years, and Mark Smith has one of the nicest Formula Toy I've ever seen and also knows these trails very well. We are fortunate to have so many great people supporting Team Marlin Crawler!

I only took a video of our rig starting off, which I haven't uploaded yet, so until then here comes an animated GIF!

GO TEAM MARLIN CRAWLER!!

This is our 7th start, more King Of the Hammers starts than any other team on the planet!

[BigMike]

After all the rigs were set off and gone, many people made their way to the jumbotron to watch the action from ground and aerial cameras



The course this year is a very long 182 miles comprised of three loops, each passing back through the main pits, which was located alongside the start/finish area.
The first loop was mainly a high speed desert loop with the other two being all Rock Crawling. A lot of Rock Crawling.

We headed back to our pit tent to get prepared for our rigs return. We were supporting the Four Wheel Parts race team as well so we knew we'd have an eventful day.

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Found some more nice rigs

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There were many big names out there

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This lady had her hands full

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Back in the main stage area people were glued to the competition



Here we are looking north on the west side of main pits



Here we are with the Four Wheel Parts crew discussing responsibilities

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It only took about an hour and a half for rigs to complete the high speed desert section. They could be seen coming down this steep descent just outside of main pit

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Here comes one of four Four Wheel Parts rig making it's first main pit stop

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That pit stop was "BigMike Approved"


Brendan is getting us all ready for our rig which was expected to stop by very soon

And here we come roaring into the main pits on our first stop!

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And away we go!

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I left to head out and get some good action pictures of our rig on the Rock Crawling section of the competition

Another one of these nifty Daihatsu trucks



Here is Tech Tim working the mic




With many onlookers wondering if they are man enough to wear a Kilt

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Cool rigs everywhere ya looked!

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Here we are out at Chocolate Thunder. As you can see, just like in past events, this is the most popular place to be





They even had another Jumbotron here!!