TRI-CITIES, Wash. – You can leave your horseshoes and cowboy boots at home for this roadeo. The Washington State Roadeo is an entirely different competition.
For some bus drivers and transit workers across the state it’s a fun part of a multiday Public Transportation Conference.
The competition has 11 different problems or challenges, according to Ben Franklin Transit Driver Gabe Beliz.
It includes different tests like driving 20 miles an hour through barrels that get closer and closer as you move, stopping exactly six inches from a cone and driving by tennis balls in formation while trying to avoid hitting them or making them roll along the way.
Beliz won the Tri-Cities Roadeo this year and will be representing Ben Franklin Transit in the State Roadeo.
He said the state competition is his key to getting to the internationals, a competition he’s won four times in the past. His goal: getting a fifth international championship ring.
“I expect a very stiff competition,” Beliz said. “I don’t know if [the drivers] just got better over the years…but I don’t expect it to be an easy cakewalk. It’s going to be a stiff tuff competition for sure.”
He said he learned everything he knew from another local champion, Dan Shmit who has won five rings himself and has since retired from bus driving.
Beliz said he hopes to make it to that level and still talks with Shmit about the different strategies and potential ways to get an edge in the competition.
“The comradery is great, even though we’re against each other, we actually support each other, and Washington is a really tight group so a lot of awesome drivers,” he said.
