Click for Coverage

raising Roost - 1993 Chevy Blazer Covered In Mud - Photo 35674013

Back to Article

The crew that wheels at the farm is a dedicated bunch. Duane Miles picked up a loner 388ci engine from his buddy’s drag car so he could come out and sling mud. Sitting atop Dana 60 front and 14-bolt rear axles, the ’93 Chevy Blazer worked great in the pit.

The crew that wheels at the farm is a dedicated bunch. Duane Miles picked up a loner 388ci engine from his buddy’s drag car so he could come out and sling mud. Sitting atop Dana 60 front and 14-bolt rear axles, the ’93 Chevy Blazer worked great in the pit.

While there was no shortage of mud, the property had a nice variety of hillclimbs and trails. Cliff Bailey is a regular at the farm and had no trouble working his ’79 CJ-7 through the woods.

131 1205 12+raising roost+mud truck group shot

Charles Smith’s ’98 Jeep Cherokee is built for crawling boulders in the rocky mountains of North Carolina, but that didn’t keep him from playing in the mud. To give the Jeep a little more off-road prowess, Smith fitted the homebuilt lime-green XJ with a full-width Dana 44 front, a Dana 60 rear, and 38-inch TSLs.

When most truck owners lose the forward gears in their rig’s transmission, they generally throw in the towel and call it a day, but Dustin Baker plays by a different rulebook. After his super-high Chevy no longer wanted to move forward, he spent the rest of the day blasting through the mud in reverse!

Other than a few friendly races amongst the locals, no official competitions are held at the farm. This means when you get bogged down at the end of your mud run you can simply back up and keep hammering down until you make your way out of the pit.

To keep the property interesting, the owners often bring out heavy pieces of equipment to build new obstacles and dig out old ones. Manley Jones’ tractor-tired YJ is usually one of the first to give a new obstacle a go. Like most of the mud pits, this hill didn’t stand a chance against the nitrous-snorting mud monster.

Even without a front driveshaft, Ray Deane got in the action with his ’01 Cherokee. Though a heavy right foot was a must, the 381⁄2-inch Boggers helped him go more places than even he thought possible.

One of the coolest setups on the farm was the side-by-side hole-and-hill pits. Each of the water-soaked and clay-lined pits is a little different from the other, and neither is what we’d consider easy.

Some of the holes at the farm are pretty deep. This particular trench swallowed Clay Morgan’s 36-inch Swampers in a matter of seconds and even filled the inside of his Jeep with some frigid muddy water!

Ricky Bell and his ’82 S-10 pickup were up to trying even some of the deepest pits. Powered by a small-block V-8, a TH350, and an NP205 feeding a set of 21⁄2-ton Rockwells, the mega-mini was at home in the mud.

No matter whether you were stuck, broke, or simply out of gas, someone’s usually there to pull you out. And when that someone gets stuck, someone else is ready to pull him out!