Mud Nationals ‘07

Sneakers, white t-shirt and a nice pair of shorts, these are just a couple things I would not recommend bringing to the High Lifter Mud Nationals, trust me.

My attire on our first day at the Mud Nationals was very casual, for the trail riding that we normally do, these however, are not normal circumstances. The dictionary defines “mud” as; earth that is very wet, soft, and gummy, well the dictionary is borderline retarded. Here’s my definition of mud; soil that has been turned into one of the most treacherous obstacles imaginable, this soil has the ability to sink anything that goes in, FUN!

For most people, sitting waist deep in brown mucky water is a less than attractive way of spending a whole weekend; those people however have never attended the High Lifter Mud Nationals in Jacksonville, Texas. You may remember our very first issue of Side X Side Action and the coverage we had of the 2006 High Lifter Mud Nationals, well this year we took the 25 hour drive from California (pulling a 5th wheel trailer) to hang out with our brown water wading readers. The HLMN are held every year at the Mud Creek Park, just five minutes outside Jacksonville and is home to thousands of eager mud enthusiast. This is no one day or two day event, the HLMN starts on Wednesday for open riding and ends on Sunday as throngs of mud clad riders scrabble to get back to civilization and their less than brown collar lives. This year we wanted to get into the action of the Mud Nationals a little more so we drove out our trailer, seeing as they wouldn’t let us check in our UTVS at the airport. Jason from High Lifter and the boys over at Gorilla Axle had caught mention that we were going to be coming out to the event and told us that if we didn’t bring out something cool from California we would be sent packing. Well our original plan was to bring two bone stock Rhinos we had sitting at the shop, but these guys wanted something cool, something that they most people in the south and in the Midwest hadn’t seen before. My custom four seat Rhino would have been perfect to bring, however it was still in the shop due to engine malfunctions, so after a phone call over to our buds over at RhinoCraft we had a full on race ready Rhino to take.

We hit the road for Texas on Sunday night at about 7 P.M. from Beaumont, CA and drove late into the night until………………………….

Read the full 2007 High Lifter Mud National article in the next issue (July/August 07) of Side X Side Action Magazine: The first and only magazine dedicated strictly to the Side X Side market.