Brian “College Boy” Gabriel
2014 King of the Hammers Champion Leron Healy has proved himself once again
this year as the best in offroad racing! Originally and currently from Farmington, New Mexico Loren and his wife are raising 3 kids. Loren works in the oil and gas industry by day and
races offroad buggys by night. This was his 6th appearance at KOH and he has come a long
way since then. At the time he had what he thought was a pretty stout trail rig to enter into
the most grueling race on the planet. Loren had met his match that year and pretty much
broke everything that there was to break. The driver seat even broke though the floor just
before it caught on fire!
he Hammers may have gotten the best of him in 2009, but a fire was lit inside and there was
no way that Loren was going to hold him back! He knew that he had the driving ability to
be competitive but it was obvious that the rig at hand was not going matching the level of
driving skill.
When one wants to start in the racing world, there is no podium resume to gain sponsors to build such a race car. Loren had to get creative, and found himself with a second mortgage on his house. Soon enough, Jimmy’s 4x4 in Cortez,
CO was hard at work on what would be Loren’s Chariot for the 2010 race season. When I asked him how on earth he got
away with that, all that Loren could say was. “I have the best wife you could ever ask for!” That leap of faith worked.
With a car, crew, and driver in tune with each other it was a victorious first place finish! It made all of the hard work and
risk worth it!
The big win helped gain some sponsorship and although the buggy from 2010 prevailed, it had seen better days.
Keep in mind that KOH is not the only race that these teams and cars see each year. There is a laundry list of race days in
the Ultra4 series as well as other circuits and venues that these teams test, train, and prepare themselves at.
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W T4x4
March 2014