Reminiscing With Mom

As  little girl I remember riding in my dads beast of a truck.  Well at least to a little girl it seemed to be a beast. It was a fairly stock 70's something 4x4 Dodge. I can't even remember the color of the thing. He mostly used it for dump runs and going out to cut fire wood in the back country.

But the fondest memories I have of riding in it were when we took it to the Mud Races.Now mud racing is very different then what they do in the South. That is called mud bogging :-).  We would back up to the fenced off area, separating the track from parking,  and line up with all the other spectators The adults set up chairs in the bed, and the kids sat on the roof of the trucks.

Friend of mine after a little mud holing 

Imagine a high school track and field track.  Now replace the rubbery  track with a slick snotty clay/muddy mess. At one end you have the normal arch of the two curves make. At the other end in the arch is sett up with barrels . Think Rodeo barrel racing. On the long side closest to the spectators is a HUGE hole in the track filled 3/4 of the way with water. I would guess 5ft to 6ft of water.( keep in mind I was around ten years old it could have been 4 ft and look like 9ft to me )  This is what we called the race track.

There are three separate events on this track.  1) Barrel racing a timed event 2) Mud hole racing a Timed event IF you make it through the water on your own power. 3) a whole track event. You start on the straight side head to the barrels, then through the mud hole. Again a Timed event. When I say timed event we are not talking NASCAR time tables. There are  way more recoveries on this track than on a paved racetrack :-)

There were more recoveries, laughing and falling down then most anything else. But it was good clean well OK muddy fun! I loved going to those events with my dad. I would have loved to take my boys to such events when they were little, but by then we where living in a big city and I hadn't a clue how to go about finding such things. ( life before computers)




What are some of  your first memories of playing in/with a 4x4?