17 Participants and our own Darrell Kemle tried their Excavator skills at a BC Regional Kubota Event in Creston on Tuesday May 5th. Kemlee Equipment was the site of the Kubota Excavator Rodeo. Participants operated three different Kubota Excavators in three separate events.

Event 1) Navigating Excavator through a obstacle course

Event 2) Excavator Bucket Dexterity

Event 3) Excavator Boom and Stick Operation Skill

Participants were judged on their skill and speed per event and speed overall on all three events. The Top 5 local finalists move on to a Provincial Championship in Richmond, BC, September 2009.

Every Participant received Kubota Prize Pack. Also the Top 5 winners at the Creston Event received a Limited Edition Kubota Excavator Rodeo Jacket and a Model Size Excavator. At the Provincial Kubota Excavator Rodeo the finalists will compete for a RTV500 Utility vehicle worth $10,823.00.

This is the first year of the Kubota Excavator Rodeo.

The best combined time was Two Minutes 36.98 Seconds.

During the spring Kubota held 5 regional Kubota Excavator Rodeo events throughout B.C.

The Kubota Excavator Rodeo qualifiers were held in Langley, Duncan, Creston, Vernon and Quesnel where the top five finishers were invited to the championship in Richmond B.C.

Of the 25 finalists 22 were able to attend the Kubota Excavator Rodeo Championship on Saturday September 19th in Richmond to compete for the grand prize of a Kubota RTV 500 Utility Vehicle worth over $10,000.

The finalists along with family and friends joined the Kubota representatives for an evening Meet and Greet at the hotel location in Richmond.  During the evening names were drawn to have each of the operators pick up a toy excavator that had their number for when they would compete the next day.

The first competition was for the operator to pick up a baseball off the first pylon and dump it into a 20 litre pail.  Then after successfully doing that they had to pick a ball of the remaining three pylons and place the baseball back onto the first pylon.  Then the operator had to pick up the last two balls and put them in the pail and return to home base.  Their time was recorded with a maximum allowable of 5 minutes.

The second competition involved raising a tire and rim on a chain over and into an ABS pipe course complete with soccer balls on each of the four corners (each one knocked off added 10 seconds to the operators time) then once inside the first ABS pipe square the operator had to skillfully guide the chain towards them through a set of parallel pipes only 6 inches apart.  At the end of this narrow channel was another ABS pipe square where the operator had to raise the tire up and overtop of the square and return it to the start position.  Then time was stopped until the chain was released from the bucket and then the operator swung to the pipe lift to pick up one at a time a six foot length of ABS plastic pipe from one rack and swing and place it on another rack.  Then the last challenge was getting the bucket and arm through a rectangular box and push a baseball off a pylon and into a bucket.  Again their time was recorded and any balls knocked off were added to their total time.

Lunch was served to the finalists and their guests while the times were added up to find who the top 3 Kubota Excavator Rodeo competitors.

Once the calculations were verified the Bronze Award went to Ryan Taschuk from Kelowna while the Silver Award went to Wade Groenhuysen of Creston and the Gold Award and the Kubota RTV500 Utility Vehicle went to Chad Hastings from Duncan.

Congratulations to all the participants and Kubota is already making plans for a repeat of the Kubota Excavator Rodeo in 2010.

FINAL TIMES POSTED BELOW: