• Home
• In This Issue
• College Row
• Editor's Blog
• Fun Stuff
• For Advertisers
• FFA.org

More Feature Articles

January 2010
-Creature-Focused Careers
-Former Members Reflect: Dr. Dwight Armstrong
-Levy Randolph
-Safety on Speed Dial
-Preserving Their Culture
-Off and Away

November 2009
-Former Members Reflect: Emilie Bocker
-Turn That Down!
-Car Smarts
-So Much Cooler Online
-Laila Hajji
-The Water Way
-A Greater Cause

June 2009
-Stretch Your Summer Income
-Riley Branch
-Turn That Down
-Behind-The-Scenes Star

May 2009
-Welcoming Women
-Regina Holliday
-Job Interview Jitters
-So Much Cooler Online
-Questioning Your College Choices?

-A Can-Do Attitude
-Former Members Reflect: Michele Payn-Knoper

April 2009
-Hannah Crossen
-Cowboy Book With a Cause
-From FFA to 33Miles
-There’s Cash in Your Future
-I’m Angry…Now What?
-For the Love of Landscaping
-Perfect Balance
-Gardening For A Cause

February 2009
-Blue-Ribbon Banjo Player
-FFA as an Art Form
-Wild About Animals
-Nessie Early
-Be a PAL
-Full Throttle
-Living to Serve
-Special Invitation

January 2009
-All About National FFA Week
-Paul Moya
-Justin Floyd
-Partners for the Planet
-Finding Balance
-Swimming in Aquaculture
-Breaking Records
-Take It Slow

December 2008
-National FFA convention to rotate homes

November 2008
-Dr. Al Snyder
-Scholarship Secrets
-Gear Up for National FFA Week
-Kari Boettcher
-Resist Peer Pressure
-Good to the Last Crop
-All Creatures, Great and Small
-Sparking Interest

September 2008
-Agriculture Accuracy
-Crissa Fruechte
-Brady Revels
-Get Up!
-Proceed With Caution
-All in Good Taste
-Clutch Performance
-Step Right Up

July 2008
-Take It to a New Level
-Deep-Rooted Interest
-Take a Deep Breath
-Tyler Tenbarge
-Inspired by FFA
-On the Right Track

May 2008
-In the Vault
-Your Money: Keeping Records
-National Officer Q&A
-We’re All Unique
-Best in Show
-Grab Life by the Reins

March 2008
-Call to Order!
-Reality Check
-Turtle Power
-By the Numbers
-Dale Darling
-A Token of Appreciation
-National Officer Q&A

January 2008
-National Officer Q&A
-Back Talk: Paul McCutchan
-Building Bright Futures

November 2007
-National Officer Q&A
-Back Talk: Corey Flournoy
-Biofuels Mean Business
-Go, Team, Go
-A Tractor Tradition

October 2007
-National Officer Q&A
-Back Talk: Kristie VerMulm
-Give them an A+
-Cranberry Crazy
-Racing to Indy

Contact Us

Let us know your thoughts on the new FFA New Horizons online.

FFA Feature

Full Throttle

Race through the mud

February 2009

Mud bogging is all about going big – big trucks, big wheels, big engines and five to eight seconds of big-time adrenaline. It’s a man’s sport, and a big man’s sport at that. Or so it would seem.

Talk to Angelica Gallegos, though, a sophomore FFA member at Las Vegas Robertson High School in Las Vegas, N.M., and you might get a different idea. At just under 5 feet tall, Angelica is definitely not big. Far from it. But she is an avid mud bogger – one of the few women who compete – and she’s as intense and excited and competitive as they come. Especially, that is, when it’s time to push the pedal to the metal.

Going All Out
Mud bogging, at least in theory, is a relatively simple endeavor.

You strap on a helmet and other protective gear, haul yourself into the driver’s seat, steer your rig to the starting line, put it in first gear, and then wait for the signal. When it comes, you floor it, and through the mud and ruts you go. The engine whines, tires spin, mud flies, and your truck – or in Angelica’s case, a souped-up Jeep – does everything it can to wrench itself from your grip and fly off course.

If you’re good, you cross the finish line 100 feet later. If luck’s not on your side, well…at least you’ve got your helmet.

“It’s so fun,” says Angelica. “It’s a pit, and you don’t have much space to move, and there’s always the possibility that you’ll overcorrect and go off the side.” In fact, says Angelica, last year, in her first race of the season, she did just that. “I went flying out and climbed up the wall and was disqualified,” she explains.

She wasn’t fazed at all. Not in the least.

“What I like about mud bogging is it’s not just about how you do,” she says. “It’s also about seeing how the competition does, and seeing what they do to their vehicles.”

A Family Affair
And what do they do to those vehicles? Let’s just say that Angelica’s Jeep spent a good deal of time in the shop last winter.

“We’ve totally redone it this year,” she says. “We decided to get bigger tires, which meant the gear ratio needed to change, and then we decided we’d get a new motor.”

When Angelica says “we,” she’s talking about her dad, Chris, who introduced her to the sport and who himself was a competitive mud bogger back in the early ’90s. Dad no longer races, but he does go to Angelica’s events to coach, be her mechanic and cheer her on.

“I always told him I was going to mud-bog someday, but he didn’t believe me,” Angelica laughs. “Eventually he realized I was actually serious.”

Two years ago, the summer before Angelica’s freshman year, he bought her the Jeep.

“I wanted a Jeep because it’s little compared to what everyone else is driving out there. It fits my personality,” she says.

More than Mud
Now don’t get the wrong idea. Angelica may be small, but her personality is anything but, says her Las Vegas Robertson FFA advisor, Gary Leger.

“To give you an idea what kind of person she is,” Leger says, “consider that she’s in my agricultural leadership class and in ag business and marketing, but she’s also taking ag mechanics. She’s an excellent welder. I think that says a lot about her. She’s so well-rounded.”

And busy. In addition to her FFA work (she’s chapter treasurer, placed in the top 10 at the district level in public speaking, and was on an agricultural issues team that won state and competed at nationals), Angelica takes college-level math and practices karate. She also manages the wrestling team. And then there’s her other sport: track.

In seventh grade, Angelica says, she was running with the track team, but unsure what events she’d compete in. Her coach asked if there was someone who could run hurdles.

“When I said I’d do it, nobody took me seriously,” she recalls. “I was the shortest girl on the team. They were like, ‘yeah, right.’”

As it turned out, she was not only serious, she was fast – the fastest hurdler on the team.

Now running varsity and a star in the 100-meter event, Angelica has her sights set on this year’s New Mexico state championships.

New Ideas
Angelica never thought she’d join FFA, and before her freshman year, it wasn’t even on the radar.

But after a friend signed her up, she went to class and learned the FFA Creed. She was hooked.

“For the last 13 years, I’ve wanted to go to medical school and be a pediatrician,” Angelica says. “But lately I’ve been thinking I want to go into agriculture and maybe become an FFA advisor. I’ve had so much fun with it; I’d love to share my experiences.”

Until then, she says, it’s time to hit the books, the track and, of course, the mud. Saturday races run April through November, and she’ll be there on the starting line – in her little Jeep, jacked up on huge tires.

“My dad is always telling me, ‘If you want to do it, do it,’” she says. “So that’s it. I’m doing it.”

Story by Chris Hayhurst
Photography by Kevin Young

---

Recent Comments

Only members can view user comments.

Are you a member? If so, please log-in. Not a member? Please register. Have you forgotten your password?