2018 King of the Hammers: Only the Strong Survived

The overall winner of the EMC would be Dan Fresh in the number 88 Fox Racing Shocks/Savvy Off Road 4500 Modified Jeep. Incredibly, this is the same Jeep that has taken John Currie to his many wins in the EMC and now has taken Brandon Currie and Dan to wins.

Taking second overall and the 4800 Class win was Casey Gilbert, who fought against Fresh all day. More impressive, however, was that the Overall Podium would be the first-place finisher of each class. So, not only did Jessi Combs take the Savvy Off Road Jeep to a Pro Comp 4600 Stock Class win but she would take third place overall as well. The shock of the day would happen 10 hours later. Of the 137 drivers entered, only 11 would finish in time as Justin Bodewitz in the 4830 Pro Comp Jeep would finish, but just outside his 10-hour cutoff time.

Because of those two races having shorted so many finishers, the King of the Hammers course was altered to allow more vehicles to potentially finish. Out of the 101 drivers entered, 29 would finish before their cutoff time, and 32 would eventually cross the line with those last three not making their cutoff window. Every year, it seems like leading drivers are getting closer and closer to a wheel-to-wheel finish for first. For most of the Hammers, Jason Scherer in the Safecraft 4400 and Randy Slawson in the Bomber Fabrication 4400 were battling side-by-side. One would pass the other and swap places again. Even in between this action, Scherer fixed a transfer case issue and was still able to keep up with Slawson. However, the pass of the race might have been at Backdoor.