Ken Block, the Rally driver turned extreme sports celebrity and cultural visionary whose reckless stunt driving and Hoonigan brand helped define automotive excitement for a generation, died on Monday, January 2 at the age of 55 after a snowmobiling accident in northern Utah.
Earlier on Monday, Block uploaded multiple Instagram Stories updates depicting him prepping for a day of snowmobiling with a group in the mountains outside Park City, Utah, where he had a property. According to the Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office, Block was riding his motorcycle up a steep slope when it overturned and landed on him.
Despite the fact that his companions were able to dial 911, he was confirmed dead at the spot after a search and rescue team located his party in what appeared to be heavy weather. The sheriff’s office has provided a photograph of the location below.
As unexpected as this is, attempting to summarise the significance of someone like Ken Block is equally intimidating. Over the past decade, he seemed to be everywhere: rallying, drifting, hill-climbing, Gymkhana-ing, and simply pushing the limits everywhere he could, whatever he could while having a blast doing it.
He would be in a World Rally Championship race in Spain one moment, running Pike’s Peak the next, and gliding across your screen in the most recent Gymkhana film the next. Meanwhile, the Hoonigan lifestyle, video, and apparel brand he co-founded in 2010 helped attract millions of young enthusiasts into the fold with the send-it attitude that permeated all of its projects. Block knew that in order for car culture to endure for another generation, it must be about having fun.
It is also difficult to condense Block’s career into a single narrative. He later competed professionally as a skateboarder and motocross racer after co-founding DC Shoes in 1994. In 2010, he founded the Monster World Rally Team, making him the first American to compete in the World Rally Championship.
He originally appeared on the rally circuit in 2005 in Rally America, eventually accumulating enough victories to qualify for WRC seat time. Simultaneously, he was competing in numerous rallycross championship series and filming his first Gymkhana videos for Hoonigan, which are collectively one of the finest driving demonstrations ever filmed—often imitated, never duplicated.
This fame and notoriety, in addition to his unbelievable abilities, made him a sought-after stunt driver in the entertainment world; if you needed something leaped, slid, or spun, you contacted Block. He appeared in numerous television programs, video games, and episodes of Top Gear.
Even though he had assumed the role of senior statesman within the enthusiast group in recent years, he was far from finished. In June of last year, Block attempted a Pikes Peak record that was disrupted by last-minute mechanical troubles, and he was in the process of preparing to attempt it once again.
He has just announced a new connection with Audi and presented the first “Electrikhana” video, which was produced in Las Vegas and features a wild Audi S1 Quattro restomod. And in 2022, he competed in the American Rally Association Championship alongside his adolescent daughter Lia.
Block leaves left a wife, three children, and a profound, permanent mark on the culture of automobiles. Throughout it all, he developed a reputation as a genuine, genuine individual, a gearhead’s gearhead, an incredibly gifted driver, and a loving, caring spouse and father. His passing leaves a colossal void that can never be replaced.