VOLUME ISSUE JANUARY , P67
BY MATT MUSGROVE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN MCCASLAND
T
he 2023 SRT King of the Motos returned as part of the
three-week long King of the Hammers event in Johnson
Valley. This GPS-based hard enduro event, which first
ran in 2012 (but skipped last year) kicked off the 2023 season
for both the IRC U.S. Hard Enduro Series, Presented by Klim,
and the AMA West Extreme Series, Presented by Beta. A re
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cord 175 riders entered this challenging event, which included
Youth Lites riders as young as 13 and adults in their 60s.
Promoter Justin Leinweiber has promoted this event several
times and has been working on these courses for years.
This year's 30-mile course was made up of technical trails
that had endless rocks of all sizes embedded in sand, which
either went up or down steep desert mountains. In addition to
this technical terrain, paying attention to the GPS to stay on
course while avoiding constant obstacles seemed to be the
most challenging part of the weekend.
Saturday consisted of two races. A one-lap Prologue deter
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mined starting position for the afternoon's qualifier Race 1,
which was a 12-mile single-lap race around a mountain range.
The Prologue was only about two miles and started all rac
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ers one at a time out of the Hammertown short course. Will
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