Nothing says outdoor festival like snow cones, barbecued bison burgers, oppressive Missouri heat, and an event called Mudstock 2001. The ditched psychedelic VW bus should have clued us in that the Potosi event would become one of the greatest mud-truck gatherings in American pop culture history. And even though Janis Joplin didn’t show for her set, Mudstock 2001 was still a groovy gathering of mud, rocks, big trucks, tough trucks, monster trucks, and ugly trucks.
Everyone knows that the Woodstock of ’69 was a free-for-all, everyone’s-invited kind of event. At Mudstock participants had all-access, break-your-own-damn-truck-for-once kind of backstage pass to acres of open play areas. The Sports in the Rough crew groomed the land and prepared the site for far-out entertainment. The merry-go-round assortment of play areas included a 30-foot-long by 8-foot-deep mud drag/pit called the Potosi Pit, an island surrounded with a mud moat and grenade holes called Monster Island, and a rockcrawling course with 4-foot-tall boulders. There was also the not-to-be-missed Hillclimb A (not too steep) and Hillclimb B (mucho throttle needed), the tire pit and obstacle course, and an urban obstacle course that looked more like a junkyard full of old cars, boats, and a kitchen sink. Talk about road rage! All right already—enough about the dizziness. Let’s get to the important stuff.
Trucks! We ditched the show ’n’ shine and went to check out the main show. Here’s what we saw. Peace out!