Kyle Chaney Makes History at 2025 King of the Hammers

What’s up everybody? It’s Tiffany Stone alongside Kyle Chaney. Now Kyle, you’re a four-time champion over here in the UTV race at the King of the Hammers, and with that being said, you’re going for your 5-peat, correct? Yep, yeah, hopefully this will be fifth.

We’ll see. I mean, we got qualifying here in a little bit. Still some fast guys to go. You know, this race is going to be tough.

Dave put a bunch of RCPs out there, which are rock checkpoints, and he put them in some really nasty spots in the rocks, so he’s making us stay in the rocks more this year, which is going to make the race, you know, a lot tougher than it’s been in the past, like a lot of the bypasses are not going to be able to be used. So yeah, I’m looking forward to it, but qualifying is going to be important trying to get to the rocks early. Well, talking about that, you’re not only racing the 4900 class, you’re now also racing the 4400 class, stepping it up, but we are standing in front of this brand-new beauty right over here. So Dave did change the rules.

37-inch tire is the minimum for the 4400 class. Yeah, so you know, we got a taller knuckle to be able to run the 37 because the stock knuckle, you know, will only accept a 35, and then CT Raceworks built the chassis to, you know, be able to hold everything together, you know, be able to run the 37 and, you know, hopefully not break and have a machine that, you know, will get us to the finish line. And, you know, we’ve been out here testing this thing and, you know, I think it’s it could do it. Well, let’s talk a little bit about the main features that differentiates your UTV 4900 car to this 4400 car.

So what’s the biggest difference that you have from one to the other? Because I’m assuming you took a lot of the same technology, a lot of the build specs, but had to stay within that 4400 rule. We did. I mean, really the biggest difference is the tubing diameter of the chassis.

Okay. This is definitely a heavier chassis, you know, per the rules, you know, my UTV chassis is quite a bit lighter. You know, shock package is pretty much the same. I wanted my shocks to be the same, so when I’m out here testing one car, I don’t have to, you know, test the other car.

So like once the shocks are good on one car, you know, they’re, you know, they’ll, they’ll work on both cars. You know, the tire for sure, you know, having a couple inches of extra tire helps in the rocks. I feel like in the desert, it may not be as good. It’s easier to break the car, but in the rocks, it’s a huge advantage.

Well, one thing that I think is really cool, guys, that doesn’t necessarily change the drive style of the cars. These seats in here, Kyle, you said we put Gator seats in here. This is awesome. How is the feel of it?

Because it’s super, super cool. I love this in here. Yeah, no, I went with the Gator skin last year and I like the way it looked. I mean, it, it felt fine driving it.

I didn’t notice, but, you know, it just looks so cool and, you know, it means like, you know, like we like to party over here. I love it. Well, here at King of the Hammers right now, it’s kind of cloudy, but earlier in the week, there was snow. It was 78 yesterday.

It could be high of 60s, low of 35s, and with AMSOIL, you know, those products, cold temps, high temps, everything in between, it keeps the race car pretty dialed in. Yeah, no. So we were on AMSOIL and everything, you know, the engine, the DCT, the diffs, you know, the coolant. You know, we had to do some, we had some issues with some of our coolant.

We tested a cooler and it didn’t work. So, you know, luckily we brought enough AMSOIL coolant with us, you know, to, you know, to make this thing have enough coolant. And, you know, like you said, with the temperatures going from freezing snow to, you know, it could be 80 degrees by the day of the race. So, but it doesn’t matter.

Once we get these things in the rocks, it doesn’t matter if it’s 10 degrees, you know, it’s still going to be hot. You know, the transmission gets hot, the engine gets hot, you know, and when you’re going through those rocks and you’re, you know, the clutches are slipping in the transmission, you know, you need a good oil to keep it cool and keep it going. And the viscosity is super important out here just to make sure everything’s great, right? Yeah, you have to have the right viscosity of oil for sure.

I mean, you know, you got, if it’s too thick, you know, it could slow, you know, the flow down. And if it’s too thin, you know, it could flow through the coolers too fast. So, you know, having the right viscosity of oil is very important. Well, King of the Hammer is going for that 5P.

I always like to talk to drivers. Do you, because obviously you want that top spot, you want the clean air. A few days ago, we did have wind, but there’s no guarantee of wind out here. It’s pretty dusty.

Do you want that top spot, like always, or do you want somebody to, you do want to chase somebody down? Like, what’s your drive style for that now going for that 5P? Has it changed? No, I definitely want the top spot.

It’s going to be tough. I mean, the track is really technical. And I feel like if you push hard, your, your risk of making a mistake is pretty high. You know, there’s a lot of off camber out there.

So, I mean, I am going to try to take a conservative, but you know, some of the fast guys I have watched, they have made a few mistakes. Okay. So I feel like maybe being a little conservative, you know, over, you know, making one mistake, you know, maybe the difference and, and winning qualifying. Well, when we talk about strategy and drive strategy, you have main pit.

From here, you also have remote pit, which is now the only remote pit. Usually you have one and two, but now you have remote pit two only. And that’s usually over here by Kings Bido and coming down through out of the rock section. How’s that going to change your strategy for pitting?

Is there any difference, especially since you guys don’t know the third lap yet? Yeah, for 4400. Yeah, we don’t know the third lap, which I think is cool. I think it’s awesome that they’re not letting us have the track so we can’t go pre-run it.

It’s just like, you know, throwing us on it’s something new. Yeah. You know, I think it’s going to be fun. It’s a challenge.

It’s going to be a real challenge. You know, you can’t go out there and pick your lines and figure out where you’re going to go. You’re going to have to have a good navigator, you know, that’s going to be able to read the map on the fly and then you got to have a good driver to pick good lines as you’re going through there. So it’s definitely going to be interesting the way that they did lap three this year.

Well, as a driver too, you’ve done this trip, you’ve done a majority of the trails out here. Is it weird to say, do you have a favorite trail or do you find a trail? Not necessarily the most difficult, but it’s like a fun trail to do or an obstacle. Not really.

I just like, you know, go and run in the trails. You know, of course, when we’re here testing, we like testing on the hardest trails because we’re trying to break the machine or figure out, you know, the weak links. So, you know, we go to the hardest trails but I mean, they’re all fun. You know, it’s not so fun when you’re broke down in them but you know, when you’re going through them, all the trails are fun.

That’s awesome. Alright, I asked Shannon Campbell this earlier and he said, I’ll tell you after but it’s going to be difficult. How do you sum up King of the Hammers in one word? Legendary.

Legendary. I like that Shannon said madness. That’s from a three-time King though. He’s like, it’s madness actually.

Do you agree with that? Do you think it’s madness? But once you go through that madness, it becomes legendary? Sometimes I try to stay out of the madness.

I feel like the madness is when you break. So, I try to stay calm and smooth. Yeah, madness, I feel like we’ll get you a fast lap but sometimes it will leave you alongside the trail. That is true.

Well, Kyle, best of luck. I know you got to get ready for qualifying today. Any last words on how you think you’re going to do for these two races? I mean, I’ve got high hopes.

You know, I’m really confident this year. We’ve been out here testing a lot of confidence in my machines. So, of course, I want to win and I think we’re going to win. We put in the work to win.

You know, there’s a lot that goes into winning here. You know, there’s a thousand bolts on this thing and a million wires and, you know, one little thing goes wrong. You know, you’re going to be stranded out there. So, everything has to go right.

You know, you can do as much preparation as you want and you can still have a failure. So, you know, knock on wood, we have a little bit of luck and, you know, we have definitely put in the preparation. Awesome. Well, it is so great to talk to you.

Kyle Cheney going for that five Pete here in the UTV class. Stepping it up and wanting to take that race of Kings race too. I know you want that super bad, don’t you? Yeah, I do.

You know, that’s the race that we’re really focusing on this year. I mean, of course, we focus on the UTV race, but, you know, we really want that that 4,400 win. Awesome. Well, best of luck to you guys.

Make sure you guys follow along this Saturday and you guys are racing Thursday as well for the UTV. So, Thursday for the UTV, Saturday for the 4,400. Best of luck to you, Kyle Cheney. Thank you.