On one of my only trail rides using a three wheeler, I found myself face-to-face with a long run-up, a quick hill and a water hazard shortly after. In western Washington, “water hazard” could mean small puddle, deep puddle, quicksand…you just didn’t know. Rational-thinking me wanted to find the dry perimeter around the hazard and get back to camp. The other side of me, the one that can tell you which color paint chips have the best flavor, urged me on, wanting to see just how far a Honda trike could fly with my then-featherweight hide on the back. This is the day I learned all about clearing water out of an engine, because I landed and the ATC200 sunk like a brick, with just the handlebars sticking up out of the water. Whoops…

Watching these mega trucks hit a launch ram into a muddy pit like the world’s happiest hog at the 2019 Wicked Dam Jump at West Georgia Mud Park reminds me of that day. The smart play would be to spare the axles, save the engine, and keep your spine in the same location it was in before you got into the rig. But each one of these drivers has a devil on their shoulder with the pitchfork at the ready, poking away, urging them to stand on the loud pedal just to see how high and how far they can huck that truck. Each landing makes my back ache, each jump puts that weird “falling sensation” pit into my stomach, and all of that means that each driver went for it like they should. When in doubt, air it out!