Woodtick Races Pt.1: In The Beginning

 I, ‘Burgie’, am one of the founding fathers of the world-wide infamous Woodtick Races, a game that has been around for 40 years. The Woodtick Races - where did it all begin?

One spring day in 1979, my father and I was out fixing a fence around our pasture. After we were done, we went to the Cuyuna Bar for a couple beers. While having our beer we both found woodticks, so we put them in the ashtray to be burnt. But before we could light a match, they both climbed out the ashtray and were making run for it. ‘Wild Bill, the bartender was watching them run, “Betcha five dollars on that one”.  Hmmm . . . racing woodticks?

Then later, in the summer of 1979, yours truly Dave ‘Burgie’ Burgwald, ‘Wild’ Bill Simons owner of the Cuyuna Bar and his son ‘Mad’ Mike – became the founding fathers of the internationally infamous Woodtick Races. We set the races up to be similar to Turtle Races, where the track consisted of two concentric circles where the starting point was the central small circle and they finished crossing over the larger circle, but on a much smaller scale. Thinking this would be a fluke, the original track was merely drawn on cardboard with magic marker.

One difference is that we could only race two woodticks at a time – drag racing style with a referee witnessing the race to determine the winner. Overall winner was determined by having a single elimination style ‘heat’ races, where if you win and your ‘steed’ advances to the next round. This first year we had as many as 80 people sign up to race their woodticks, amazing! You kept moving through the ranks as long as your woodtick kept winning. Maybe until the final race when there were only two left, and you raced to determine the 1st place winner. 

Then next year, 1980, our second year, we have the First Annual Woodtick Race  - from our past experiences from last year we thought this is absolutely NUTS, so let’s go for more. Therefore a more permanent track (and it is still in use today) was created. It was painted on a 4 x 4 piece of Plywood. 

Woodticks were available for ‘rent’ on the premises, they were supplied by the ‘Cuyuna Racing Stable’ and from ‘Burgie’s Acres’ Woodtick Ranch. Also, the ‘Ten Commandments of Woodtick Racing’ was drawn up by ‘Mad’ Mike and me and was painted on another 4 x 4 piece of plywood (still on display at the ‘Woodtick Inn’ (new name of the Cuyuna Bar). 

Mike and I, and any kids we could ‘con’ into going along, would be out in the woods and tall grass the morning of the race collecting woodticks.

“Mike, you know if the people at the Brainerd State mental hospital saw us out here ‘looking’ for woodticks, they would come with their strait jackets and lock us in padded cells and throw away the keys”

. . . to be continued.
Submitted by Dave Burgwald, game designer at Anrias Games