Owens Racing

04/03/2026

 
This photo takes us back to the ‘80s, racing in PA — and it’s where the OK4WD story got a little better. That’s Mike Rauch behind the wheel of #225, and even then, it was clear he was on another level. His builds were immaculate, detailed, and dialed in. And on the track? He made it look easy.
In 1986, Mike joined the OK4WD team — and over the next 40 years, he helped shape everything this company stands for. His expertise, his dedication, and his commitment to every customer he served became part of the foundation of who we are today.
As Mike prepares to retire at the end of this month, we want to take a moment to honor everything he’s given to this company and this community. It truly feels like the end of an era.
If you’ve got a Mike story — a build he helped you with, advice that stuck with you, or just a memory from the shop — drop it in the comments. We want to hear them all. 👇

02/09/2026

King of the Hammers 2026 didn’t end the way we wanted, but it reminded us exactly why this race earns its reputation.

Huge thank you to everyone who traveled all the way from the East Coast to California to be part of this effort, and to everyone who spent countless hours in the garage keeping the Jeep ready to race. This program doesn’t happen without you.

Race recap: we had a solid start and were steadily moving up the leaderboard through the first lap and a half. Unfortunately, one small mistake in what looked like a simple section of the course resulted in a roll onto the side. The Jeep landed with a rock in exactly the wrong place, causing cage and frame damage that made it unsafe to continue. King of the Hammers is unforgiving—out here, even the “easy” spots can end your day in an instant.

For some perspective on just how brutal this race was, only two teams finished a shortened course within the time limit this year.

We’re proud of the effort, the pace, and the team that showed up and gave it everything.

A massive thank you to our partners for their continued support:
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• Daria Metal Fabricators
• Lenig and Kosmer Coal Washery
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• Solar Technology

We’ll take the lessons, rebuild stronger, and be back. That’s racing. 💪🏁

01/25/2026

09/29/2025

Last weekend’s 55th annual 7 miler was a very eventful end of the 2025 race season. Starting out Saturday in the morning B group race with the blue cj things went bad quickly around mile 3 on the first lap I hit a rock a little too fast resulting in a flat front tire. It has been a while since we had to change a tire during a race and the lack of practice showed with a less than stellar performance. After we got going again I was struggling with vision and wasn’t paying attention and drove onto a huge boulder, which isn’t a problem for the big Jeep, but the cj was stuck on the skid plate. Attempting to get unstuck resulted in an even worse predicament with the front tires 12” off the ground. After a lot of highlift jacking and rock stacking by copilot Jeremy Dietrich we finally got unstuck. The next 3 laps went ok until with 3 miles to go on the last lap the oil filter mount broke off the frame and the filter got a hole and a loss of oil pressure ending our 1st race of the day.
Race 2 started better with tough competition and lots of dust we had a decent pace going. Lap 3 I made a mistake in a tight section of track and hit a tree hard with the right front tire. Somehow it only bent the knuckle and everything else was ok and we kept pushing on. Lap 4 we had a rock roll up under the rear differential skid plate bending it into the driveshaft yoke destroying the ujoint. Luckily we were close to the campground and the crew was able to get there with a new driveshaft and get us back going. With the down time we ended up in 5th place and also secured 4th for the season points. Saturday night and Sunday morning we worked to repair the blue Jeep to take on the vintage race and attempt to repeat our overall win from 5 years ago. This race went well until the front axle housing broke 50 yards from the finish luckily it kept moving with lots of tire rubbing across the finish to secure the overall win and also the fastest lap time of the day. Thanks to and coal for their continued support. Big thanks to for the steering ram, the tree hit would have destroyed other rams ending our race.

09/18/2025

Getting ready for this weekend's 55th anniversary race, it is shaping up to a stacked A class this year.

06/12/2025

06/04/2025

Might be slightly unbiased, but the shirt for this weekends Line Mountain 4 Wheelers race is on point. Also weather looks like it could be a wet race on Saturday, come out to watch the muddy excitement as we try to win another 🥇.

05/04/2025

Not the result we hoped for yesterday at coalbucket race. We had a strong first 2 laps of 6 and were leading on corrected time. At the beginning of lap 3 the wheel studs failed and we lost the tire in the middle of the hill climb ending our day. We did not hit anything to cause the failure and the wheel was torqued tight at the start. The wheel also shows no signs that it came loose during the race. Looking at the failed studs 5 of the 6 studs were partially cracked before we started the race. We just raced the cycle limit of the studs. This was not something we had on our preventative maintenance plan but it will be now. Time to clean and prep for redemption at the 3 1/2 in June. Thanks to everyone who helped us at the race and a big thanks to all the club volunteers for putting in another great event. Final thanks to

02/05/2025

Tune in tomorrow between 1-2pm est for our qualifying run.

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01/30/2025

Two weeks ago, we were not sure if we would make it to koh on time, but thanks to the help of many friends and limited sleep we are here. Not 100% ready, but we will be by race day.