Wright takes to mud bog track

By Laura Clark

Published: October 29, 2008

The crowd at mud bog races is in for a surprise when Derek Wright wins a race and emerges from the ’78 Chevy pickup with 33-inch tires.

“They’re expecting a 6-foot tall guy to get out,” said Lloyd Wright, Derek’s dad. “And he doesn’t weigh 200 pounds. The fans love it.”

Derek will hop down from the truck, remove his white helmet and shock the crowd when they see he’s 11 years old, looking every bit of it with blue eyes as soft as his cheeks.

Derek is the “Outalimits” half of the Outatime, Outalimits Mudd Racing Team. He joined his father in the summer of 2007, finding that three tracks — Woodridge in Scottsville, Pine Lane in Keeling and Sign Rock near South Boston – have no minimum age for driving.

And once the tracks allowed Derek to race, he started winning. Trophies, some more than two-feet tall, ring the fireplace and TV in the Wrights’ living room. From late spring to October this year, Derek won 14 events.

“A bunch of people my age hadn’t done it. I figured it would be fun. I was just real nervous,” he said of that first race. “I got first place in the first one. It wouldn’t be a sport if you weren’t nervous about it.

“I like the hill ‘n’ hole race because it has jump ramps in it. It just seems faster when you get on top a hill, and it’s drier,” Derek added.

“They are a lot of fun,” Lloyd said. “But that’s when you tear up stuff.”

Derek first learned to drive go-karts around his family farm east of Amherst. His dad had always been into racing, even making sure his son had the same initials as his favorite racer, Darrell Waltrip. Lloyd began mud bogging three seasons ago. Derek has learned as much by doing as listening to Lloyd, who competes in the 36-, 40-, and 44-inch tire classes. Lloyd said he’s won too many to be lucky; he’s a natural.

“He hasn’t hit anything hard enough to know it hurt him,” Lloyd said. “He reads a hole. If you can look at a mud hole and figure out the quickest way through it, that’s an advantage. He’s fearless. When the mud covers the windshield he knows to drive out of the side glass and judge the distance from the bank.”

To win a mud bog event, Derek has to either get around the 200- to 300-foot track in the fastest time, or make it the farthest the fastest if everyone gets stuck in mud that can be up to five feet deep.

“You’ve just really got to study the truck and where everyone’s going,” Derek said. “If it’s not really fast, you’ve just got to go and hope you make it.”

On racing Saturdays, the father-son team leaves home with a whole crew. Lloyd’s father, Lloyd, Sr., helps with the engine work, as does Wade Wright, Lloyd’s cousin, and several friends of Lloyd’s from the Shadow Ridge Golf Course and Eagle and Christian Hunt Club. Sometimes even fellow sixth-graders from Derek’s class come along. And of course, his mom, Cheryl, and sister Chelsie, 12, can’t stay at home.

Lloyd likes to joke that it was harder to convince Cheryl to let Derek drive than it was track managers.

“I was more scared than he was,” she said. “He’s so comfortable with it now, he’s driven so much. It’s more interesting watching a young kid than an adult.”

Because Derek gets suited up in a staging area, people don’t really see that at 4-feet, 10-inches tall, his head just reaches the door handle. He puts on a fire suit and bulky helmet, and straps into a 5-point harness. The gas and brake pedals have been adjusted so Derek can reach them comfortably and safely. The gear shift has been propped up, too. The blue-and-white truck has dual exhaust pipes, set up high to clear the mud.

Next season, he’s looking forward to outfitting his truck more like Lloyd’s, a ’67 Chevy with the same racing-flag paint job. Lloyd’s truck has a special windshield that won’t break and three peak-a-boo holes drilled at head level to see through the mud. Derek also wants a role cage, and topped his Christmas list with “a bigger engine.”

Lloyd tells Derek they’ll start upgrading as soon as hunting season’s over.

“You don’t buy them, you build them,” he said.

Derek Wright