GARDEN CITY, Idaho — The Ada County Highway District hosted their equipment roadeo on Thursday. The competition tests workers skills in using heavy machinery in different challenges.
- Winners from this competition move onto the national competition in Colorado
- competitors used vehicles like loaders, excavators, graders, and more
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
Growing up kids start out playing in the dirt but for Bobby Amidon his toy trucks were a bit bigger.
"So, a lot of kids when they are out back playing in the sandbox with their Tonka trucks or whatever I was playing in the real thing"
His dad owned a construction company, so Amidon got his hands on excavator's loaders and other heavy equipment from an early age. That experience now translates to his work at ACHD.
"I mean we all play in the dirt every day and we do it because we love it, and we like to make a difference"
Those skills, put to the test, at ACHD's equipment rodeo and though Stacking tires and moving golf balls doesn't seem like a challenge its a lot harder with a seventeen-thousand-pound excavator.
"It puts you in situations that you are not in all the time"
No Andrea Maze doesn't knock tennis balls off cones for work, but precision makes a difference on real Idaho roads.
"there's a lot of dangerous things above and below ground these guys really hone their skills and they are very safety minded they are very conscious of what's around them and you know the dangers of operating these heavy pieces of equipment"
I wanted to try firsthand how hard it is to work one of these machines so I hopped in an excavator to simply stack some tires, I quickly learned it's much more technical and while I was only able to stack four, other utility workers could get ten stacked in under 6 minutes.
"To me that's somebody I want digging in the right of way around all the important utilities the gas lines water lines etcetera because he's got that finesse, he's got those skills and he's got that experience to do it safely quickly and efficiently"
