MOSES LAKE — The Sand Scorpions Off-Road Vehicle Group will hold its bounty hole and freestyle competition this Saturday at the Moses Lake Sand Dunes. 

The event is properly called the Half-Sun Travel Plaza $5,000 Bounty Hole and $5,000 Freestyle Competition by Sand Scorpions, said Sand Scorpions board member Brandon Douglass. This is the 13th year the event has taken place, Douglass said. Organizers are expecting about 5,000 people from all over Washington as well as from Oregon, North Dakota and Canada. 

All are welcome and there’s no charge either to compete or to watch, Douglass said, but getting there isn’t for everybody. 

“It’s out in the Potholes area, the area we call the Mud Flats,” Douglass said. “It’s 5 miles off the gravel road that goes through the Sand Dunes. So, minivans are not recommended. We’ll have a few trail markers out and about, but essentially, if you get to the event, that’s your mission. Congratulations, you get free entry.”” 

Preregistration is open at www.sandscorpions.org, and there will be about 10 spots for drivers who register the day of the event, Douglass said. 

The event will also include food and merchandise vendors, Douglass said. 

There are cash prizes for both the bounty hole and the freestyle, Douglass said: $5,000 for first place, $2,500 for second and $1,000 for third. 

The bounty hole, Douglass explained, is a really deep mud hole. The winner is the driver who can make it the farthest through the mud, or all the way through in the shortest time. The latter is unlikely, he said; the event had been going on annually for 10 years before the first person made it all the way through, and there’s only been one since. 

For the freestyle competition, the bounty hole boundaries are removed, and drivers have two or three minutes to show off what they can do with their vehicles in holes, hillsides and jumps. Competitors are judged on the “wow” factor and audience enthusiasm, among other factors. 

There’s one more competition that Douglass called the Dirty Dash for Cash Mud Run, with separate categories for small children, older children, ladies only and all adults. 

“I go out about waist deep in the mud, which is thick and heavy, and I have a $100 bill,” he said. “Whoever pulls the $100 bill out of my hand first wins the $100.”