Remember field day in grade school? In my time, it meant that as soon as a warm-ish day that wouldn’t have rain was possible in the Spring, the teachers would prepare for a half-day of fun and games outside as a way to break up the monotony of damp, misty Pacific Northwest fare that most students were properly sick of. It was hope. It was a needed excuse to go outside, to run around like a sugared-up jackass and to find another way to win a prize or a gift certificate that didn’t involve asking for donations or selling some unwanted foodstuffs through an ordering program.

Today, a field day means that I’m doing more driving than photography or video work. I really can’t bitch, any day that I’m at the track is a good day indeed, but when I get behind the wheel and get to drive, that’s when it goes from a good day to a killer day. I see high speeds, lots of cornering and maybe some delinquent behavior in my dreams. However, somewhere along the line of searching for my dream vacation day, something got crossed up and I wound up finding Lohnes’ idea of a vacation: racing tractors through mud bogs in Russia. This is the race that is part of the Bison Track Show that is held near Rostov-on-Don, which lies just near the border with Ukraine and the Black Sea. The rules? Um…wear a seatbelt and win. That’s about the extent of what we can understand here. Speed is part of the program, but so is mud-bogging a farm tractor that was only built to dutifully till up the soil, not roll coal while catching air.