RUMFORD – Adrenaline-pumping, can’t-hear-yourself-think loud, engines-revving noise, and mud, lots of mud, flying here, there and everywhere.
That’s what a few hundred spectators witnessed at Sunday’s Moontide Mud Run on Rumford businessman Rick Nokes’ land adjacent to his Oxford Lanes bowling alley and small miniature golf park.
Sanctioned by the Maine Mud Bog Association, racers had to drive through 180 feet of mud, 14 inches deep, within a 25-foot-wide slot in a field separated from the Androscoggin River by a stand of trees.
And then there were the smells: high-octane fuel, sweat, tobacco, pizza, fried foods and, of course, the swampy mud that lined the course pit and spectator areas.
But people on both sides near the start enjoyed seeing drivers from across Maine, and a few from New Hampshire, try to reach the other side faster than the other guy or gal.
“I like seeing my friends here that are running it,” said 10-year-old Brandon Roberts of Rumford.
The attraction for Cliff Larrabee of Durham was “the noise, the speed.” His wife, Debbie, said it was the sizes and shapes that caught her attention.
Pickup trucks, Jeeps and sport-utility vehicles either slewed along through the bottom of the mud or skimmed the top, flying and bouncing along. Several of the lower horsepower street-stock four-wheel drive vehicles and some two-wheel drives became mired, requiring extraction back the way they’d come, with the help of a tow by a logging skidder.
Ron Pare of Winthrop, president of the Maine Mud Bog Association, said the object of mud racing is either to get through the course the fastest in each of the eight classes or go the farthest through the muck if no one is finishing.
Before the hot summer sun and 90-degree temperatures had baked the water out of the mud by 3:15 p.m., more than 80 runs had been made. Several drivers competed in different classes and did more than one run.
Race announcer Betty Andrews said the race attracted 130 to 140 trucks, 40 of which were entered in one class.
Cecil Phillips of Phillips and Ron “Yehaaaaaaa” Pike of Palermo said mud racing is their hobby.
Phillips was racing a flashy blue truck with a 2004 Toyota body and a 454-cubic-inch Chevy engine. Named “Toy Chevy,” it was outfitted with 4-feet-tall Super Swamper Bogger tires.
Phillips, a carpenter and contractor, said the truck runs on 116-octane gas and nitrous oxide and was entered in three classes. His wife, Kerri Phillips, a SAD 58 kindergarten teacher, was also there to race.
“There ain’t nothing like it, really,” said Pike of mud racing.
“It’s hairy, it’s scary. You get a good adrenaline rush off it,” he added.
Pike, a logger, was racing a hodgepodge Dodge SUV: Jeep body, Chevy front end, Dodge rear end, Mazda steering, and a 604-cubic-inch engine. Last time he raced the vehicle in Rumford, he won first place in his class.
“She’s a rocket. You just push the pedal down, hold on and open your eyes just before you go through the gate,” he said.
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