Mud Run delights crowds

By TOM LAVENTURE

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Ironwood - Big machines are as much a part of county fairs as 4-H and agriculture as the fans showed Sunday by cheering on the 15th annual Mud Run, one of the final events of the Gogebic County Fair.

"Lake States Mud Racers has been around for a while but this is our second year running it," said John Olkonen, club president.

The races include the Gogebic County Fair, Iron County Fair, Ashland County Fair, the Bessemer Fourth of July, Butternut Pioneer Days and the Glidden Labor Day Fair, he said.

"Most everybody who races with us races all year at six to seven events," Olkonen said.

At the Gogebic County Fair this year, Amber Hunstad won in the Class 2 Street; Dusty Barland won in the Class 4 Pro Stock and Class 3 Super categories; Katrina Crom won the Class 5 Women's races and Keith Tippett won the Class 6 Modified.

"This fair went really well," Olkomen said.

Theron Rutyna, club treasurer and announcer, said there are a few new drivers this year and a lot of new trucks. There are sanctioned racing events but the drivers do not have to be sanctioned to race, he said.

There are various classes that any four-wheel drive vehicle can run as long as the driver's willing to pay a small registration fee, he said. There are modified race trucks, normal trucks, and things built on the farm, he said.

"It's a good day of fun," Rutyna said. "Nobody here is a professional. We are just amateurs from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan."

Rutyna said the one surprise this year was when a modified four-wheel drive Chevrolet Corvette blew its transmission coming out of the mud. The car couldn't stop in time before it went into a pond on the far end of the field.

"The driver just didn't have quite enough room to stop before the pond," Rutyna said. "We had a Corvette decide that it was going to go swimming and we had to go and fish it out."

Other than the mechanical breakdown there didn't appear to be any damage caused from the pond, he said. The Ironwood Fire Department and paramedics were on scene but the driver was not injured, he said.

The drivers come from virtually every walk of life, Rutyna said. There are mechanics and farmers but also firefighters, information technology professionals and nurses, he said.

Jamie Barland, who drives a pickup and a modified limousine, works in the loan operations department at Gogebic State Bank as a day job. She's started racing five years ago after following her husband around watching him race since 2001.

"It's just the thrill to go through the pits, the power, and it's a whole lot of fun," Barland said. "There's a lot of concentration that goes with it. You've got to make sure you are aware of how you stage and then how you go through the pits."

There are now six or seven women drivers in the club but Barland said people are still surprised when she gets out of the cab after a race.

"They say, 'what? That little girl is driving that big thing?'" Barland said.

Barland said she is racing well this year but that the limousine isn't exactly the best competitive vehicle. She competed better with the pickup she drove previously, she said.

"Last weekend at Saxon I placed third in the women's class, but otherwise I haven't been winning much," she said.

The best thing about the summer racing circuit is the racers and the fans, she said. These are people who don't usually see each other all winter and it's an activity that brings them together again each summer.

"We all come together as a big family," Barland said.

Bob Ofstead still races the same 1946 Dodge pickup that he and his son modified 24 years ago. He drives a log truck for a living and calls racing his "fun mud."

"I missed three races in 24 years," Ofstead said. "It's a lot of fun and a lot of good people to hang around with."

The track for the Gogebic County Fair race was dryer this year which is hard on the trucks because the tires don't get slippage in the mud, he said. The drivers had to be careful not to break something like an axle, he said.

It's expensive to get into mud racing and the drivers aren't going to get rich doing it, he said. It's about doing something you enjoy and having a blast, he said.

"Repairing is my hobby," Ofstead said.