Molokai Mud Bog Returns After Decades

Photo by Léo Azambuja

By Léo Azambuja

As the drivers lined up on the twin mud tracks, revving their engines to the tune of deafening noises, the sizable crowd waited quietly. On each start, the crowd erupted in cheers and mud boggers would send rocks flying through a cloud of red dirt before plunging into the mud pit, hoping to keep a straight line and finish first — and in one piece.

The Molokai Mud Bog 2025 attracted about 2,000 people to the new mud tracks in Ho‘oluehua July 19. Forty drivers battled each other with their mud boggers — modified mud-racing vehicles — and kept the crowd alongside the racetracks entertained all day.

Kahalai Alcon

“Last October, we were participating in a mud bog on Oahu, and I guess that brought back a lot of memories for us,” said Kahalai Alcon, the daughter of event co-organizer Kamaile Alcon. “Then my dad had the idea; ‘If we get this opportunity for go out and do all this on another island, we like get the opportunity to these people on Molokai.’”

That’s when the Alcon ‘ohana decided they were going to make a mud bog event happen on Molokai no matter how much it would take, Kahalai said.

Bobo’s son has a construction company, and it was the only way, he said, they could make the event possible. In just a few months, they turned several acres of wild land into a mud-bog venue by clearing the brush and carving the tracks.

“He and his crew and our whole family did all of this,” Bobo said, pointing to the tracks and then to a nearby piece of land still choke-full of kiawe trees. “This place looked exactly like that mountain. We cleaned it all out.”

The gate opened at 7 a.m., and at 8:30 a.m. the races started.

The blistering sun did not deter the crowd. There were people from all ages, from newborn babies to great grandparents. And there were some dogs too. A sea of canopy tents lined up the area alongside the racetracks, and many people brought personal sun umbrellas. Nearby, vendors sold food, drinks and sweet treats.

Kahalai, who is 15 years old, said the last mud bog on Molokai was at the Davis’ homestead land down the road 35 years ago. 

“That was back when my papa was racing (mud-bogs). This is all his homestead land right here,” she said, pointing to the event’s venue. 

Thirty-five years ago, Kahalai’s grandfather, Bobo Alcon, raced his Midnite Burner, a pink, V8 4×4 Jeep Wrangler. Last Saturday, the same Midnite Burner raced again, but this time driven by his grandson and Kahalai’s brother, Kahanu Alcon. 

The majority of the 40 mud boggers were from Molokai. Eleven of them were from Oahu and the Big Island.

“That’s what we wanted, that was our goal, to get the Molokai people out here and participate and have fun like their parents did before,” Kahalai said. 

Mud-bogging runs deep in the Alcon ‘ohana. When asked if she too likes to race mud-bogs, Kahalai said she is still too young to drive one — you need to be 18 and have a valid driver’s license.

“Maybe when I turn 18, I’m going to feel ready but not right now,” she said, laughing. 

The event was done by 5 p.m. Go to @molokaimudbog on Instagram to see all the results.