Pure mudder delight

MOYIE SPRINGS, Idaho – It’s the motors, not the mud, that get these men revved.

Lloyd Standish chugged the last of his malt liquor with a boost of caffeine and ginseng and jumped in The Hog – his custom-built 4x4 that made the crowd at Saturday’s Fall Mud Bog hold up their beers and cheer.

It was 11 a.m. and Bruce Behrman’s 40 acres on the Moyie River Road north of Bonners Ferry just off Highway 2 was covered with mud and rigs like The Hog, which has a ‘78 Ford bronco frame, Toyota body, 600 horsepower under the hood and tires nearly 4 feet tall.

With a smirk, Standish grabbed the gearshift covered with a metal skull and slammed it into second gear, hitting the gas. The Hog roared into the 75 yards of caramel-like mud that had taken a woman’s GMC Jimmy hostage, burying it to the floorboards.

The 460 cubic-inch engine revved to 7,000 rpm – the red zone on the tachometer – and covered the scream of Standish’s passengers. The tires spun at 85 mph yet the rig only fought through the pit at school-zone speeds. Mud splattered the windshield and the crowd. Gasoline fumes filled the air, burning nose hairs.

“Yeah,” Standish said, trying to maintain his “no biggie” image. “I like it loud.”

The 34-year-old Sandpoint native likes this bog because there aren’t many rules. Show up with your truck, pay $10 and rut through the mud until your rig gets stuck or dies. No helmets, no seat belts, no experience required.

These mud drags are a popular Northwest event because it doesn’t cost much to turn a stock four-wheel-drive into a mudder – just a little lifted suspension and some fat tires. It gets people off the streets and away from police.

“Living around here, how many four-wheel-drives do you see?” Standish said. “It gives them a chance to rod and have some fun without the cops screwing with you.”

Behrman has had the event at his rural home near the Montana border for two years. This spring’s Mother’s Day bog drew about 5,000 people, but attendance was down Saturday, perhaps because of hunting season.

“I’ll lose my butt on this,” Behrman said as he watched a topless Chevy Blazer with no doors and rusted-out fender wells fishtail through the muck. Five blond children cheered from the back of the Blazer. A girl in a pink coat used her sleeve to wipe the mud from her face.

So why allow a skidder to dig a gigantic mud track through your meadow and invite hundreds of people to camp on your grass and cut ruts into your hillside?

“For the thank-you’s,” Behrman said.

Behrman helped put on the first event three years ago at a different location along the Moyie River, which runs south from the Canadian border to the Kootenai River. The Idaho Department of Environmental Quality found the site littered with feces and toilet paper, and a report stated that sediment, oils and fluids may have entered the river.

Behrman said there weren’t any problems but that this location is better because it’s far from the river. The only problem last year was that people littered the property with broken glass bottles, he said.

As of Saturday evening, the Boundary County Sheriff Department hadn’t reported any problems with the event although deputies occasionally patrolled the area.

But the bonfire and live band were far from starting.

Allan Lundberg’s 1984 Chevy Blazer is blue under all the mud. Unlike Standish, he hasn’t put thousands and thousands of dollars into his ride. It just has a small lift and big tires and the rest is stock, allowing him to drive it on Spokane streets without too much hassle from the cops.

Lundberg, 23, bounced against the steering wheel despite his seat belt as the Blazer crawled through the goo. The engine wasn’t loud enough to drown out the Deftones tunes as he pulled out of the deepest hole.

Other than the rush and the sound, and perhaps the fumes, he’s not real sure why people are so addicted to the bogs.

“It’s just like everyone has to have one thing they do that doesn’t make sense,” Lundberg said. “This is mine.”

Sean Levesque is celebrating his 17th birthday at the pit. He videoed the trucks, and a black hearse that plowed by while he waited for his friend to find a bolt for the carburetor on their ‘84 Nissan.

“You want to be as loud as you can and get through there with a lot of mudslinging,” Levesque said. “It’s not just for you. You’re wheeling for everyone else too.”