Working the concessions stand last Sunday didn't give much opportunity for checking out the Mud Bogs. But since the only open restrooms were behind the grandstands, the wife and I did manage to make one excursion past all the action.

Near as I can tell, contests were judged by how far through the mud bog a driver was able to get their vehicle. From the reports of the boys we had working the window facing the pit, only two drivers made it all the way through.

The first was this jeep.

Most contestants, however, ended up like this outfit.

You'll notice the cable attached to his rear bumper?

That's how you get yourself out of the hole you just dug for yourself. You have the tow rope attached before you go in. Then, once your forward progress has ended (or if your front drive shaft sheers off and rips through your transfer case, as happened to one slightly muddy fellow who came by our window to buy dinner), the other end of the tow cable is hooked up to the handy-dandy ever-present semi-tractor (weighted down with a huge chunk of concrete)

which slowly, but inexorably, drags you back out.

Presumably, if you wish to enter the field of play without the tow cable attached, it is up to you to get out into the mud and hook it on once you bog down.

I presume most folks hook up.

Not the jeep, though. He even braved the pit a second time, sans rescue cable, and made it across once again.

And the fellow who lost his transfer case to a broken front drive shaft?

Took his rig back into the mud using just two-wheel drive.

Don't know how he made out.