In a rare second appearance by organizers in the Park County Fairgrounds arena, Josh Ashcraft, Talan Hooper and Michael Hooper, of Race 4 Recovery, will offer a new competition for area outlaws.

On Wednesday night, July 27, those wishing to race their all-terrain vehicles — off-road two- and four-wheeled machines — are invited to compete in the newest addition to the county fair this month called the Outlaw Rodeo. It’s like a traditional rodeo barrel race, but with knobby tires instead of horseshoes. 

The team said the invitation to present a second event is an honor. 

“The Fair Board came out and actually asked us if we wanted to do two days at the fair, which is cool, because that  pretty much never happens,” said Talan during a break as the crew prepared the arena for the events.

It’s not without challenges. The team is required to leave room in the dirt for Thursday’s concert and then turn around quickly for the Race 4 Recovery motocross event at the same venue Friday night.

It’s a ton of work for the team, who all have full-time jobs as well as their charity work. 

But it’s an important task combining their love for stirring up the dust and helping Powell-area folks in need. 

Ashcraft and Talan weren’t even old enough to drive when they decided to put on their first charity race event after Ethan Asher was involved in a near-fatal accident in August of 2019. They wanted to help, if possible. At the same time, they missed the days when off-road racing was popular in Powell.

“We wanted to race. So we made it happen,” Talan said.

The Wednesday evening event hasn’t been earmarked to a particular charitable cause at this point, but the group needs to both cover the cost of organizing races, including insurance, diesel and machinery rentals, as well as having funds in reserve if Race 4 Recovery finds a worthy cause in the off-season.

“We’ll see if we can find anybody to help out while we’re in the offseason. And then once our season starts back up, we start doing stuff like this again and raising more money,” Ashcraft said.

Talan and Ashcraft have previously participated in barrel racing on their bikes and loved having something different to do. Then, knowing that folks out here “in the middle of nowhere” have a lot of ATVs, they thought it would be fun to get them in on the action. 

“You don’t have to be, like, great. You don’t even have to be good. Anyone can do it,” Talan said.

“Hopefully this is one of those oddball events that everyone’s like, ‘Well, I’ve never done one of those. Let’s go do this,’” Ashcraft said.

The entire point of Wednesday night is to get everyone involved in having fun and raising money for future events. Racers can sign up the day of the event and will be offered practice runs Sunday, July 24, prior to the official start of the fair.

“Each person will have their own set of barrels,” said Michael. “We’re going to throw a little mix into it, maybe put a little jump or something in the middle of [the race]. But it will be something that every machine can do.”

All three of the organizers plan to join the fun. One of their goals is to bring back off-road racing events to the Big Horn Basin. 

“Motocross used to be huge back in the day here in Powell, Wyoming. I’ve heard a lot of stories of a lot of people who lived here for a long time,” Ashcraft said. “We have to go an hour and a half for the closest race. So, in the very beginning we were like, ‘Let’s bring racing back. Let’s try getting it big again.’”

They’ve had a lot of help and are thankful to everyone who has helped make their dream a reality. “You know, just like raising the child, this is kind of like a child. It takes a village. We couldn’t do it without the support of the whole community,” Ashcraft said.