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Playing in the pit
(3 comments; last comment posted September 3, 2007 04:53 pm)
Angelica, 15, and her father, Chris Gallegos, watch and discuss the first few runs in her category, Street Stock, during a mud bog in Pecos on Aug. 25. Chris started participating in mud bogs in 1991, a year before his daughter was born. Photos by Natalie Guillén /The New Mexican
By TODD BAILEY | The New Mexican
September 1, 2007
Sophomore Angelica Gallegos follows in her father's footsteps as a bona fide mud bogger
She watches the other racers steer their vehicles and makes mental notes as to which ruts are easier to race through. Then she goes through her mental list again.
Be sure to put it in first gear.
Stay in the pit.
Follow the ruts.
Get a good start.
Angelica Gallegos is already in her fire suit, ready for her second run at the La Joya del Padre Mud Boggs near Pecos on Aug. 25. Most other racers don’t wear a fire suit, and whether she likes it or not, she isn’t given a choice. If she wants to be a mud bogger, then she has to wear a fire suit.
In her eyes, it’s all a small price to pay to fulfill her dream.
The race announcer calls her to get ready and the crowd cheers. At 4 feet, 11 inches, climbing into her 1958 Jeep with 36-inch tires is liking climbing Mount Everest. She plants her right foot on the back tire while her hands grip the roll bar and back fender. Angelica then swings her left foot to a step just below the Jeep’s door. From there, she throws herself into the vehicle’s cockpit.
Her seat is pushed up as far as it can go because she likes the steering wheel close. Her helmet and goggles are on, but because she’s wearing gloves, her dad, Chris, fastens the chin strap. By then, the Jeep’s engine is revving.
As Angelica moves into the starting position in front of the 100-foot-long mud pit, the checklist keeps rolling through her head.
Be sure to put it in first gear.
Stay in the pit.
Follow the ruts.
Get a good start.
Then she sees her dad, again telling her to make sure the Jeep is in first gear.
One second later, after a race official gives her the OK, 15-year-old Angelica Gallegos hits the gas.
A renewed interest
Sixteen years ago, Chris Gallegos fell in love with mud-bog racing. The Las Vegas, N.M., resident raced a 1973 Chevrolet Blazer and became pretty successful in the New Mexico Mug Bogging Association. For five years, he raced every other weekend throughout Northern New Mexico.
“I think there were about five or six of us Las Vegas mud boggers who were always in the money at the races,” Chris Gallegos said. “That was when mud bogging was really big around here.”
At the height of his success, the excitement was hard to come by for Chris and his wife, Bernadette, who had five young children at the time, two of whom, Angelica and Christopher III, were toddlers.
“It was hard traveling to all these races with little children,” Chris said. “Having to deal with the mud bog and getting all that stuff together, then needing to make sure we have all the stuff for the family ... it was a mess at times.”
The headaches of traveling overpowered Chris’ joy of racing and winning, and by 1994 he was burned out with mud bogging. The Blazer went from racing in tons of mud to resting on the front lawn.
“For years, the kids played in the Blazer,” Chris said. He eventually sold it in 2002. “It became a huge toy to them. Angelica was around the age of 10 when she began asking about mud bogging. I took it with a grain of salt then, but as she got older, you could see her interest in mud bogging grow.”
Angelica can’t explain where she got her desire to race, but there were plenty of opportunities — from watching the videos of her dad racing, to playing on his Blazer for eight years. As she got older, she attended a few events that continued to pique her interest. By the time Angelica was 13, she had her mind made up.
“Between the summer of my seventh- and eighth-grade years, I asked my dad for a Jeep,” Angelica said. “I don’t know why I wanted a Jeep, but by the next summer we had one.”
Since the previous owners made the Jeep into a a rock crawler, not too many modifications were needed to make it ready for mud bogging. A Ford 302 V8 engine was put in, as well as a new fuel line.
“She helps out when she can,” Chris said of Angelica’s assistance under the hood. “But the biggest part of this deal is for her to maintain her grades.”
She may race on Saturdays, but Monday through Friday, Angelica is a sophomore at Las Vegas Robertson High School. She is a member of Future Farmers of America and also a hurdler for the track and field team.
“It’s such an adrenaline rush,” Angelica said of racing. “I’ve only been to about five or six races, and that rush never goes away. It’s so great!”
Too much of a good thing
In the early ’90s, when the NMMBA was at its height, there were over 100 racers throughout Northern New Mexico. The summers were packed with races from Cuba to Pecos and Las Vegas, and hundreds of fans would attend the day-long events.
“A lot of drivers had their own fans that would cheer for them when they raced,” Chris said. “At its highest point, mud bogging was pretty big around here.”
Ferbie Montaño was one of the first mud boggers to race and has been involved with the sport for close to 23 years. Because the races were sanctioned through the NMMBA, the popularity grew outside of Northern New Mexico.
“We even had racers coming from Denver and Kansas,” Montaño said. “And because of the good participation, we had great payouts to the winners.”
But the sport became too much of a good thing. Montaño remembers when the NMMBA began its fast decline. Dissention and internal politics formed. Local drivers were upset because of the large number of competitors meant prize money was hard to come by and the cost of vehicle maintenance and travel became too much. Others, like Gallegos, just got burnt out. Montaño said that mud-bogging fans became disinterested in favor of monster-truck shows. And so the association faded away by 1995.
“I was surprised how fast everything died,” Chris said. “I got out in 1994 and by the end of 1995, everything was gone.”
Mud bogging itself didn’t die, but events became scarce for the next five or six years. And without a governing body, individual race directors set their own rules.
Within the past three years, mud bogging has enjoyed a resurgence, even though number of drivers and the crowd sizes are not what it once was. But it’s enough for Montaño to take full advantage in bringing back the NMMBA.
“What’s also great about having an association is that our events can be sanctioned,” Montaño said. “That way we can have these events at the Indian pueblos to attract more crowds. That would help with getting more and more people to these events.”
Montaño hopes that an association can be approved by the racers during this off season, paving the way for a fresh start to the 2008 season in March. Standing in his way is the desire to keep mud bogging a smaller fraternity.
“Some think that by allowing growth, there is less opportunity to win prize money to help with the wear and tear of the vehicles,” Montaño said. “But what makes it nice is that you don’t have to compete against the same people all the time.”
Learning the ropes
As Angelica approaches the starting line, Chris’ mind is running.
Be sure to put it in first gear.
Stay in the pit.
Follow the ruts.
Get a good start.
He motions to his daughter to make sure the Jeep is in first gear. With his hands on his hips, Chris starts to pace back and forth.
“I can’t stand still when she races,” Chris said. “I get too nervous.”
Eventually, the nervousness goes away. In his first summer back with mud bogging, Chris enjoys his new role as coach, mechanic and sponsor. He owns L and M Pawn Shop in Las Vegas; Bernadette runs a hair salon a block away.
The timing of Angelica’s interest in mud bogging couldn’t have been more perfect. Now that she and her brother have grown up, traveling is much easier.
“It’s easier for us now,” Angelica said. “I can pack the cooler and all my dad needs to worry about is loading the trailer.”
As Angelica slams on the gas, the Jeep leaps into the pit, showering mud over anyone and everything within 50 feet. Angelica finds a rut and powers through in 7.87 seconds.
“It was a little slow, but a good run,” Chris said. “She made it through the pit. That makes it a good run.”
Angelica’s endured a lot of growing pains that have led to the creation of her checklist.
“The good thing is that she continues to improve each time she goes out there,” Chris said.
As the congratulations die down, a new controversy develops. A race official running alongside a bogger tripped the finish line’s motion sensor before the bogger crossed. This set off a round of complaints, arguments and discussions that ended with everyone within the super-stock division having to race again.
Even though Angelica races faster at 7.02 seconds, she isn’t fast enough to earn a top-three finish and some prize money. The pit has been run through so many times that drivers are racing through it in five to six seconds. Even so, being the youngest racer out there, she continues to earn respect.
“I don’t know if it’s because she is so young and so small, or because she is a girl, but she has become a crowd favorite at these events,” Chris said. Of the 80 or so mud boggers who consistently race, six are women.
“It’s a man’s sport,” said one fan, Kevin Vigil. “That’s what makes it exciting to see a girl get out there, be competitive and get dirty. It proves that it’s not a man’s sport after all.”
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