Just too strange....

Man kills self after dropping out of endurance contest
By Cox News Service
Thursday, September 15, 2005

LONGVIEW, Texas -- A contestant in the internationally popular Hands on a Hardbody contest at Patterson Nissan in Longview has killed himself after dropping out of the contest on its third day.

     According to witnesses, 24-year-old Ricky Vega dropped out around 6 a.m. Thursday. He politely excused himself and walked away.

Witnesses said Vega went directly to a Kmart across the street, threw a trash can through a window and quickly went into the store.

"It was the most surreal thing I've ever seen in my life," said Dru Laborde, a program director for KYKX radio and a media participant in the contest.

Police said they were called at 5:59 a.m. When they arrived, they saw Vega walking from the back of the store toward the doors. He had a shotgun in his hands, police said, and shot himself.  

A small group of people at Kmart said they were part of Vega's contest support crew and family. They also declined to comment.

Vega, who lived in Tyler, worked for FedEx and Rander Metal.

Laborde said he had arrived at the contest at 5:30 a.m. Thursday and spoke with Vega.

"He was fine," Laborde said, adding that Vega had said he was in the contest for the long haul.

Vega had competed in the contest last year, but dropped out because of a family emergency.

Contest officials declined to comment immediately and asked other contestants not to speak with reporters.

This was the contest's 13th year. Signs and equipment around it were quickly pulled down and officials said the endurance competition would not continue.

The Hardbody contest drew international fame after a filmmaker from East Texas documented the 1995 version in a film released in 1997. Since then, the contest has been copied and modified around the world. The contest requires competitors to keep at least one hand on a pickup truck as long as possible with few breaks. It generally has lasted several days.

The last person standing wins the truck and other prizes.

Darwin at work. Dude, it's just a truck... put the shotgun down...

sorry, that's not an 'endurance' competition...... I thought they meant the X-terra race or raid galois(sp??).

Frickin' bizarre, man. The power of sleep deprivation at work, perhaps.

Weird story, but I have to call .  Unless I am wrong, didn't KMart stop selling Guns and Ammo a few years ago?  I know none in FL sell any.  If KMart sells in other states, I withdraw my objection.

Come on are any of us really surprised?

The gun obviously sent out negative energy therefore possesing the man to come kill himself.  After all we know guns kill people. We hear it all the time so it must be true.

Quoted: sorry, that's not an 'endurance' competition...... I thought they meant the X-terra race or raid galois(sp??).

That's what I was thinking.  Shit, I've been bummed about getting DNFed in an adventure race but that's too much.

Quoted: Weird story, but I have to call .  Unless I am wrong, didn't KMart stop selling Guns and Ammo a few years ago?  I know none in FL sell any.  If KMart sells in other states, I withdraw my objection.

You are going to need to withdraw..........

This is my hometown.

www.news-journal.com

What a fucked up dude.....he had 2 kids. I don't feel sorry for him, but damned those kids, I feel sorry for them.

KMart will be sued shortly.

Quoted: Weird story, but I have to call .  Unless I am wrong, didn't KMart stop selling Guns and Ammo a few years ago?  I know none in FL sell any.  If KMart sells in other states, I withdraw my objection.

Think I'll go this way too. NONE of the Kmarts I have EVER been in sell guns of ANY kind if I am wrong then

Ban trash cans!!!

That would piss me off if I was one of the people left standing...

Supose Bush will be blamed for this too

Quoted: Quoted: Weird story, but I have to call .  Unless I am wrong, didn't KMart stop selling Guns and Ammo a few years ago?  I know none in FL sell any.  If KMart sells in other states, I withdraw my objection. Think I'll go this way too. NONE of the Kmarts I have EVER been in sell guns of ANY kind if I am wrong then

I have seen a kmart selling guns in the last 6 months.

Quoted: Weird story, but I have to call .  Unless I am wrong, didn't KMart stop selling Guns and Ammo a few years ago?  I know none in FL sell any.  If KMart sells in other states, I withdraw my objection.

Even in an editor-reviewed newspaper article, with multiple witnesses, of COURSE someone on Arfkom is going call bullshit

Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Weird story, but I have to call .  Unless I am wrong, didn't KMart stop selling Guns and Ammo a few years ago?  I know none in FL sell any.  If KMart sells in other states, I withdraw my objection. Think I'll go this way too. NONE of the Kmarts I have EVER been in sell guns of ANY kind if I am wrong then I have seen a kmart selling guns in the last 6 months.

Kmarts in Alaska kept selling guns and ammo after the stores in the Lower 48 stopped, because it was a significant portion of their business.

Quoted: Quoted: Weird story, but I have to call .  Unless I am wrong, didn't KMart stop selling Guns and Ammo a few years ago?  I know none in FL sell any.  If KMart sells in other states, I withdraw my objection. Think I'll go this way too. NONE of the Kmarts I have EVER been in sell guns of ANY kind if I am wrong then

Ughh, this is Texas, guys. Even the cows are packin.

The KMart in Oshkosh just very recently stopped selling firearms.

He probably had deeper problems than what people knew.

Max

No one can sue for crap[and win]. He comitted a felony, theft of a firearm, B&E, Burglery. Even tho I have not shopped Kfart for 15 years [my own personnel ban] there is no way they are culpable.

Quoted: No one can sue for crap[and win]. He comitted a felony, theft of a firearm, B&E, Burglery. Even tho I have not shopped Kfart for 15 years [my own personnel ban] there is no way they are culpable.

They should've had unbreakable windows installed!

In San Francisco, I swear the city was actually getting sued for not having a high enough suicide wall on the Golden Gate bridge since somebody was able to climb it.  It's just better that some people die.

I live in Longview and this is no BS and yes K Mart does(maybe did now?) sell guns. Darwin at work.....GO DARWIN! I said they should have held the contest at the local refugee center. Would have given those folks something to do for a few days. Maybe next year K Mart will have "Hands on the Shotgun" contest .

On a slightly different note the "Fair" is in town and sharing the fairgrounds with the refugee's. So you got a couple hundred refugees and a couple hundred carny's. Prolly won't have any trouble at all.

Quoted: Ughh, this is Texas, guys. Even the cows are packin.

You bet they are! If you see a cowboy reach into the back end of a steer, watch out! He's going for his back-up gun!

It is true.  Our company was one of the sponsors.  We were giving away a spa as a fourth place prize.  I've been bouncing back and forth between the Hands on a Hardbody contest and our booth at the fair.  I got a phone call at 8:00 am telling us to come pick up the spa, contest was over.  Freaky.  My concern was that the guy was on his way back to shoot the other contestants when he was confronted by the police.  No telling what was on his mind.  Sleep deprivation is a helluva thing.

www.hohb.com for the contest's website.

On another note, all of us vendors got kicked out of the exhibit hall at the fair.  It was being used to house evacuees.  There were privacy fences erected around the perimeter, armed national guardsmen posted for security, checkpoints, storage buildings, etc.  Number of evacuees in this very large building?  FOUR the first night, ZERO the second night!!!!!  Our .gov at work.

Spa King

 Can't these idiots find a bridge to jump off of, some traffic to step into, or a high tension tower to climb?

Leave the guns alone!!!!

humm ephidrine OD?

myit

The ARFCOM BS Patrol gets another one wrong

I live 30 mi from Longview and this was all over the local news today.

Same here they pulled their guns awile ago.

I wonder...

WRT Contest: Is superglue 'cheating'?

Quoted:  Can't these idiots find a bridge to jump off of, some traffic to step into, or a high tension tower to climb? Leave the guns alone!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO

I got stuck on hwy 30 in northern IL for 3 hours once when some f'ed up crack ho was thinking about jumpin onto the highway.  They finally got her off the bridge......Too bad, the darwin interception team won on that one.