The famed King of the Hammers off-road race held in Johnson Valley, California, just came and went. And based on the event's social media coverage, it was an utter shitshow. Not so much the race, as that's well-organized and has rules and regulations that racers tend to follow. But rather the ever-growing fan base turning the entire freakin' valley into their own personal drunken rager, which devolved into what amounted to a riot at a landfill.
And here's where I'm going to piss off a whole lot of freakin' snowflakes, and you are snowflakes, because you dipshits are going to get King of the Hammers closed forever. It's already teetering on its existence, but your freedom of expression isn't a license to act like an asshole while being free of consequences. But on those consequences, they aren't just doled out to you, the moron tossing full beers at folks in Chocolate Thunder or getting into a fist fight with another bro in a flat brim cap, but rather the entire off-roading community in the form of the closing of the whole valley to everyone.
And, folks, this type of behavior and lack of respect toward our public lands, as well as the prominence it garnered on social media, is exactly what the United States Marine Corps, as well as countless public lands haters, want you to keep doing. Why? Because it makes their jobs of seizing our public lands. There's no need for the public to have a voice when that same public cares so little about these spaces.
It's time for the entirety of the off-roading community, the racers, the manufacturers, and the fans to stand up and stop tolerating these idiots. It's time we police our own. Kick these folks out.
Honestly, the entire timeline over the weekend was full of this crap, and I'm just so freakin' sick of it. So pardon my repeated swearing, because this has to stop.
Throughout the event, I saw the good folks over at the Gambler 500 and Sons of Smokey doing their best to clean up the valley every day after assholes trashed the place each night. Beer bottles and cans, food wrappers, car parts, and just a plethora of trash littered the grounds as if a hurricane had just come through and wiped out a local Walmart. Spectators set off countless fireworks during one of the driest Western winters on record, and often aimed them at other people. Fights were constant, with so many varying angles of each that the CIA and NSA would've caught Jason Borne in about ten seconds had he been at King of the Hammers this year. And folks got precariously close to trucks and buggies and side-by-sides to the point I was sure someone was going to get run over.
Utter freakin' chaos of our own doing. And one that'll bring about the end of King of the Hammers, and our public access to Johnson Valley, possibly in the very near future.
Late last year, the United States Marine Corps proposed changes to the rules and regulations of Johnson Valley's OHV designation, along with expanding its own boundaries of the nearby Twentynine Palms base. The changes would basically nullify any flight patterns within Johnson Valley for commercial or civilian use. That means that emergency responders, i.e., the helicopters on standby for racers and spectators in the valley during the event, wouldn't be allowed to fly. That would lead to no EMS for the event, or slower reaction times, and potentially the loss of insurance for the event. Likewise, one version of the restrictions would basically kill the public's access to the entire valley.
None of which is good, especially at a time when public lands are so under threat from the federal government as a whole.
But when this shit circulates so widely on social media, and in traditional media, we as public land owners and users, as well as off-roaders and racers, cut our own legs out from under us. We're supposed to be the stewards of our public lands, but this just makes us look like jackasses that shouldn't be trusted with our own car keys, let alone thousands upon thousands of acres of public land. And that type of coverage lets either the Marines or those in Congress point to those videos and say, "See, they shouldn't have this. They aren't taking care of it. We should restrict their access."
And if you don't believe me, the bullshit that went down at Chocolate Thunder throughout the weekend was the subject of a recent Yucca Valley Town Council meeting, where the Sheriff's department spoke about the weekend, "Our biggest problems are night time after hours up at ‘Chocolate Thunder.’ Some of you may have seen the social media posts of the fights. We had one that probably involved between 10 and 20 people. Fireworks were being thrown at them… this was never reported to us. We are investigating that after the fact. We know that at the Chocolate Thunder area there has been a lot of drinking and a lot of shenanigans."
If the focus of the council meeting is the event's negative impacts, you can best believe the positive ones are being drowned out. Meanwhile, the feds are likely gathering every post and comment about the event's bad behavior and getting it ready to present as a means of restricting or removing your public lands access, as well as the ability for the race to continue. It's that simple.
So I'm going to implore you all to stop this horseshit, to leave our wild places better than you found it, and to knock it the hell off. Because if you don't, say goodbye to King of the Hammers. Say goodbye to Johnson Valley. And say goodbye to your public lands.
