"Hammer Lung:" While there’s no official entry in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, anyone who's spent a week in Johnson Valley, California, during the annual King of the Hammers race can attest that Hammer Lung is a thing, and it sucks.
An ominous cloud of dust looms over the lakebed as thousands of UTVs, 4x4s, dirt bikes, quads, and caravans crisscross the desert floor below. The wind can clear the air at times, but also creates a sort of sandstorm, covering cars and trucks and race vehicles in a light brown powder. That same powder finds its way into your lungs, and after a few days, your boogers are brown and you’ve developed a dry cough.
But that’s a small price to pay to attend the largest gathering of off-road enthusiasts in the world, no? An event that has drawn harsh criticism, lit up social media feeds with fights and tomfoolery, but is also the only place to see UTVs and 4400 Unlimited Class cars race across the desert and through the rocky canyons that litter the 100,000 acres of public land presided over by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
