It’s not winter, but at Colorado Department of Transportation’s statewide ‘Roadeo,’ employees are still driving snowplows
At a competition this week in Eagle, transportation employees begin preparing for winter
Ben Roof/For the Vail Daily
Just because there’s no snow on the ground doesn’t mean Colorado Department of Transportation employees aren’t behind the steering wheels of snowplows and other heavy equipment used in winter operations.
On Wednesday, Aug. 27, more than 100 transportation department employees gathered at the Eagle County Fairgrounds, where a tandem snowplow, a skid steer, a motor grader and a front-end loader weaved muddy trails through obstacle courses.
It was CDOT’s annual “Roadeo” — where maintenance teams from across the state compete in challenges to demonstrate their expertise in operating the heavy equipment.
“This is great because it’s raining out right now,” CDOT Division of Maintenance and Operations Director Shawn Smith said. “That’s when we have to perform — in inclement weather. When there’s snowplowing operations, if it’s raining, that’s when we have to be at our best.”
In Colorado, the transportation department’s nine highway maintenance sections and five traffic maintenance sections compete in the roadeos during the offseason to keep their skills sharp, Smith said.
There are four events, one for each different type of vehicle. Each obstacle course is designed to test the skills that the maintenance teams need for winter operations, Smith said. During the front-end loader event, for example, the driver has to balance a ball on the arm of the front loader while driving through a slalom course, then drop the ball in a 5-foot bucket, among other obstacles, he said.
“So the front loader, historically for winter operations, we use it to load our tandem plows with our solid de-icers that you see coming out of the back of the truck,” Smith said. “So here they’re demonstrating complete 360 degree awareness — because our patrol locations are sometimes confined spaces where they have to maneuver around to load.”
Each summer kicks off with regional roadeos in each of the five of the state’s transportation regions, Smith said. The top two competitors from each of the regional rodeos come to compete in the statewide event, he said.
From here, the top two competitors in each event advance on to the National Snow Roadeo, which will be held during the Western Snow and Ice Conference in Loveland in September, with teams from around the country.
On Wednesday, O.J. Wells — a snowplow driver out of Parachute — was in the top two for the tandem snowplow competition.
“It’s been a lot of fun. I enjoy it,” Wells said. It’s challenging with the rainy weather we’ve had. It made it a little different. The course seems tighter than before. It made it a little challenging and a lot of fun.”
During the winter months, Wells said he plows Interstate 70 in an even larger “tow plow” that has an extension allowing for two lanes to be plowed at once. The roadeo helps him practice his skills driving a snowplow, so that he can be prepared for the winter conditions, he said.
Even though Wells said he has plenty of practice driving plows, he said it will help him do his job if drivers this winter also drive safely. Drivers in Colorado are expected to stay three to four car lengths behind plows and it is illegal to pass plows when they are displaying their lights and operating in tandem formation with one or more plows.
“These roadeos do test you and give you a good idea of what to prepare for back on your regular patrol,” Wells said. “But it changes a lot when it’s wintertime. People don’t understand how heavy (our plows) are at times. We’re very heavy. We do have blind spots where we don’t get to see behind us.”
