Getting an arena ready for a PBR event is dirty work, from selecting the right soil and transporting it to spreading the surface at the venue.Terry Lefton
Most action on the floor of Madison Square Garden happens after dark. But on a recent frigid Manhattan morning on that same floor, it was just 8:30 and Randy Spraggins was already hours late — and a bit stressed. He wanted to get 750 tons of dirt onto the MSG floor by 6 a.m.; instead, it was just beginning to be spread around by a series of oversized dump trucks and front-end loaders.
For all of the Professonal Bull Riders’ 30-plus years, Spraggins, who describes himself as a lifelong cowboy, has been the circuit’s doyen of dirt, trucking and installing the surfaces on which PBR riders perform in and out of venues across the country. His company, Special-T-Tracks, has assembled dirt floors for events at locations as diverse as the deck of an aircraft carrier and in the middle of Times Square.
This day, however, his focus is on MSG, which, like Manhattan, is uniquely difficult to navigate. Spraggins’ dozen or so trucks have to make the 13-mile trip to and from Lyndhurst, N.J., where the dirt is located and processed, and then drive those same trucks, each loaded with 20 tons of soil, from MSG street level to the arena floor on five. Getting all that dirt up and down those ramps takes three to four hours alone.
Spraggins
It’s the PBR’s 17th visit to MSG. Still, Spraggins, who caught the dirt bug early, as the son of a heavy construction equipment salesman, calls MSG “more logistically challenging than almost any. Most of our heavy lifting is at nighttime in the cloak of darkness.” Not so this day, but dirt is starting to be dumped underneath the MSG scoreboard.
Adding to the pressure constraints: A Rangers game the night before and another scheduled for the day after the Monster Energy Buck Off ends on Sunday.
It’s quite a jigsaw puzzle. On top of the Rangers’ home ice, there’s a layer of plastic and fiberglass, followed by a plywood floor generally customized for each venue. On top of that, heavy equipment is starting to dump and spread what will be 12 inches of a sandy soil mix. On top of that, there’s 12 semis that hold lighting and audio, and pens for the bulls.
“It’s gotten more complex, since we’re doing our own lighting and audio,” said Luke Kaufman, director of live events, a 13-year veteran of the tour. “Concerts like Billy Joel or Phish, they get to set up on a solid base. We build on top of dirt.”
After the event, all that soil must be removed, cleaned of any bull, er … debris, and trucked back to Lyndhurst. So essentially, those 750 tons of dirt, eventually spread across the MSG floor, are rented for the weekend. That’s not always the case. There are tour stops where the PBR keeps its own topsoil nearby, including Houston and Las Vegas. The ideal dirt for PBR? Spraggins addresses that issue with the ardor of a vintner debating the climate’s impact on wine grapes.
Terry Lefton
“What makes the perfect ground to buck on is particle size and a certain amount of clay mix,” he said. “Sand makes it workable; you don’t want it too hard or too soft.
“You want them to be able to get a good foothold but also safe once they get bucked off, it can’t be a concrete-hard floor. They come off with some force, so you don’t want it rock hard, but still firm, you don’t want to break them either.”
Quality dirt varies by region. Kaufman says access to the best soil is getting more difficult every year, and dreams about holding every event on the Fort Worth topsoil, on which the PBR held last year’s Finals.
“You want it to pack well,” he said, as the MSG floor was now fully covered by dirt. “It should pack well, still be soft on top and then it’s about how you groom and finesse the surface. Whatever it is, I know Randy will get it in and out in time. He’s just the best in the world when it comes to laying dirt.”
Terry Lefton can be reached at tlefton@sportsbusinessjournal.com
