by Matt Konkle
Torque Editor-in-Chief
Monday Morning
The slate gray Michigan sky threatens snow as we approach Lennon, Michigan early Monday morning, but so far any precipitation is keeping its distance. Stalking, but not attacking.
Lennon is like many sleepy, small towns across the northern United States this time of year, sitting under a blanket of snow with temperatures lounging right under the freezing mark. People getting up and around, bracing themselves for another week. Another month.
Greg Henderson, nationally-renown vehicle builder and fabricator, as well as owner of Official Use Only, is one of them this morning. He’s perfectly dressed for the Michigan cold with a bunch of layers that tops off with a red, black, charcoal and off-white flannel shirt. Heavy boots sit over faded blue jeans and he is busy loading up our custom YJL build for a long cross-country journey to Johnson Valley, California.
King of the Hammers beckons and Quadratec is on the way.
Henderson, builder of the YJL, has made the made the journey to Hammers before. Heck, he’s made the journey to all kinds of off-road events over the years.
But this trip has him excited.
”Yeah, it is going to be fun bringing this YJL across the country and stopping at different places along the way,” Henderson said. “We can’t wait to get this thing to Hammers and show it off at the Quadratec booth in Hammertown.”
The multi-day trip has Henderson and Torque Editor-in-Chief Matthew Konkle hauling the YJL from Lennon down through southwest Michigan and into Indiana, linking up with I-80 just outside Elkhart, Indiana, then cruising I-80 into Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska before moving southwest through Denver.
Then, the highway leads out of Denver and through the Rocky Mountains, before descending into Grand Junction, through Utah just north of Moab, and down I-15 through St. George, Las Vegas and into California to Barstow — ultimately ending up in Johnson Valley Wednesday afternoon.
