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PLYMOUTH TWP. — Tank tops, all-terrain vehicles and trucks of all shapes and sizes were on display Sunday as sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s made for perfect weather to get dirty in a mud pit.

After a several-year hiatus, NEPA Mud Bog returned with a bang at the Plymouth Flats. Hundreds of people packed the Hanover Nursery grounds to watch cars run through a 100-foot mud pit built by Halliday Trucking. The pit was built over the course of four hours on July 9. Mixing with rain, the bog was made into mud on July 16.

Event co-organizers Lindsey Temerantz and her uncle, Hanover Township Fire Chief Joe Temerantz, were both happy with the turnout. Joe said vehicles of both spectators and participating drivers were lined up to the highway at several times during registration.

“At first it was very slow this morning, but it picked up,” the chief said. “Very impressed.”

“It was very nerve wracking in the beginning,” Lindsey said. “But we’re very pleased.”

Shavertown residents Brian and Mollie Gizenski brought their 3-year-old dog, Dunkin, and a tent to enjoy the afternoon.

“We like this kind of stuff,” Brian said. “We’re always doing something like this.”

The Gizenskis usually take their boat out on Sundays, but were “taking a break” from that tradition to watch the dirt fly.

Valley With a Heart Benefits and the Hanover Township Fire Department were the recipients of the event proceeds. The fire department will use the money to help build a new fire station on the Sans Souci Parkway.

“Good for them,” Brian said.

Hanover Township Firefighter Sean Reilly brought his kids, Liam, 14, Killian, 12, and Tessa, 10, to the bog. The kids were too little to remember the bog during it’s heyday in the 90s. None of them knew what the bog was, exactly, but they were all enthralled by mid-afternoon.

“I didn’t really know what it was,” Killian said.

“I like mud,” Tessa interjected.

“It’s fun when they get stuck,” Liam said, noting the blazing heat was not his favorite part of the day.

Liam said he wanted to run a truck through the bog.

“I tried to convince him to let me race,” Liam admitted. But the minimum age to run though the pit is 15, and he doesn’t turn 15 until next month.

The rain Saturday worried both Temerantzes, but it was actually a benefit, helping to “keep the dust down.”

“It dried up nicely,” Lindsey said before getting in her spray-painted Mercury Tracer, decorated with unicorn-imprinted duct tape, to run jumps on the track. “Now I’m going to break some cars.”

A pickup truck barrels through a mud pit at the Hanover Nursery on Sunday during the mud bog event in Plymouth Township.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_mudbog01-1.jpg.optimal.jpgA pickup truck barrels through a mud pit at the Hanover Nursery on Sunday during the mud bog event in Plymouth Township. Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader

Spectators watch participants drive in the Mud Bog.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_mudbog02-1.jpg.optimal.jpgSpectators watch participants drive in the Mud Bog. Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader

A jeep barrels through a mud pit at the Mud Bog.
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/web1_mudbog03-1.jpg.optimal.jpgA jeep barrels through a mud pit at the Mud Bog. Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader

By Melanie Mizenko

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Reach Melanie Mizenko at 570-991-6116 or on Twitter @TL_MMizenko.