Mud flat racers were curious about the new site for the annual event Saturday morning as they purchased tickets. With the cancellation of the Foster Lake Mud Flat Races, the South Santiam Four-Wheelers Association have planned their event for March 3, renaming it the Santiam Mountain Mud Festival.
The new site is near the intersection of Skyline Road and Berlin Road just north of Sweet Home. Nearly 600 persons were at the KOA Kampground Saturday morning looking for tickets. The Chamber of Commerce and Four-Wheelers handed out nearly 600 numbered pieces of paper to ticket buyers, guaranteeing them their place in line to purchase a maximum of three tickets each. A total of 2,500 tickets, 2,000 at the KOA and 500 through the Oregon Jamboree, were available. There were still a few tickets left Saturday afternoon.
Many camped out the night before at the KOA. Chris Master of Albany and his friends stayed outside with the campfire all night, even through the light Saturday morning snow. Master said he’s looking forward to “getting rowdy” and “breaking stuff.” “We’re kind of excited,” Master said of the new site. “We heard it’s going to be more organized.”
He wasn’t surprised when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers canceled the Foster event last summer “because of the … environmentalists.’
“It’ll be fun,” Travis Stewart of Corvallis said. “It’s not going to be the same.” “The one word is curious,” volunteer Kelly Wodtli said. “A lot of people are curious .. if it’s going to offer the same as the Mud Flat did.”
Right now, volunteers are working in every spare moment they have to get the site ready to go. With three weekends left, Wodtli expected it to be ready to go on March 3. “It sounds a little more interesting, maybe some hill climbs,” Don Wagner of Toledo, a six-year mud flat veteran, said. This is the biggest bog in the Northwest, so he expected it would be just as good as it always has been.
“You’ll always miss the lake,” Wagner said, but he expected the change. The lake couldn’t have lasted much longer. Now, he’s looking forward to getting “away from the environmentalists a little bit.” “I think it’s really nice they can keep the event,” Jason Bartram of Eugene, a nine-year mud flat veteran, said. “If they’re going to have as much stuff as they say, it’ll be fun.” “We’d like our Foster Mud Flat,” Kerri Hugger of Oregon City said. “But this is cool since they took it away.”
“I think it’ll be okay though,” Chamber volunteer Debbie Jones said. “But change is hard.”
Mike Trella of Oregon City complimented the volunteers selling tickets. Last year, he said, was a “cluster,” but ticket sales were great this year. Turnout for ticket sales was a little low, Jones said, but it’s been hard getting ready just three weeks prior to the event. “It was kind of a rush, rush, rush, get it going situation,” Jones said. Overall, ticket sales went smoothly. “This line is going very fast, very smooth,” Wodtle said. “We had a lot of input as to how to make it more efficient.” Wodtli wanted to praise the Chamber of Commerce and KOA for their help in selling the tickets and how smoothly it went.