Published October 20, 2026 07:35AM<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A whining growl interrupted my sleep just after 6 A.M. The day\u2019s first emissary\u2014a minibike\u2014darted past, launched from the apocalyptic armada surrounding me. Another dawn for the captains, oft bearded and bellied like Toby Keith in a Frankenstein fever dream, reawakening their doomed creations with WD-40 and a Craftsman wrench.<\/p>\n
They are Gamblers with a capital G, living by their own car-centric lexicon and a meager rule set. Mainly: Don\u2019t be a dick. They are gearheads, sharp-witted jokers, iconoclasts who fix broken things\u2014usually internal combustion engines.<\/p>\n
On this late June weekend in central Oregon\u2019s high desert, they have congregated, 4,000 strong, as part of a sweeping movement to clean up trash-filled public lands. The weekend Gambler 500 event,<\/a> also known as the OG 500 or simply Gamblertown, started small in Oregon just over a decade ago. It\u2019s grown into a massive gathering that\u2019s equal parts Burning Man and Baja 1000. Participants modify vehicles of every sort\u2014cars, trucks, vans, and even school buses\u2014into all-terrain adventure machines. Some dress in outlandish costumes. They venture into the backcountry to collect trash, have fun, and experience Mother Nature. Now there are Gambler chapters in every state, blending off-road rambling with environmental stewardship.<\/p>\n Invariably these Gambler events draw allusions to the \u201c<\/b>Mad Max\u201d movie franchise. The oddest of vehicles\u2014call them hoopties, beaters, or worse\u2014sprout appendages like gnomes or spiders or even propane-powered flamethrowers, and it\u2019s comforting to categorize them via a cultural reference point.<\/p>\n The only problem is that the \u201cMad Max\u201d films\u00a0 are packed with insane characters trying to kill one another. Gamblers, while prone to some crazy moments, are battling litter as the enemy, bearing banners for Sons of Smokey,<\/a> the Gambler 500\u2019s nonprofit wildlands cleanup arm. An app (available to anyone) allows users to mark public-land dump sites, and drivers follow waypoints to remove anything from scattered trash to abandoned boats and recreational vehicles.<\/p>\n No comprehensive report describes the extent or the costs<\/a> of the trashing of U.S. public lands, though studies hint at the continuing problem.<\/a> The federal Bureau of Land Management oversees about 245 million acres, primarily in 12 western states; there are millions more acres in state and federal parks and forests. In addition to Gambler-led efforts, agency and volunteer cleanups routinely encounter illegal dump sites<\/a>\u2014the work of homeless encampments, individuals evading disposal fees, and others.<\/p>\n I had pulled into Gamblertown, in Madras, Oregon, the day before my morning minibike wake-up. Surveying a 60-acre field of mowed and yellowing grain stalks, I noted early arrivals: a desert-tan van budding a trophy buck from its roof and a giant faux cigarette from the grill, another van emblazoned with Pac-Man characters, and a bizarre menagerie of primer-colored cars displaying stickers and spraypainted slogans like defiant tattoos. My plain black 2020 Honda Pilot seemed forlornly out of place\u2014abnormally normal.<\/p>\n A sound I would come to know all too well greeted me: a buzzing minibike, veering around a corner. Its bearded rider wore a colonial patriot\u2019s breeches, a frock coat and tricorn hat. His shouts outdueled the minibike\u2019s whine.<\/p>\n \u201cThe shitboxes are coming,\u201d he proclaimed, mimicking Paul Revere. \u201cThe shitboxes are coming.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gambler 500 was born in an Oregon bar in 2014 as a cross between a question and a joke: Just how far could a beater car\u2014one costing $500 or less\u2014 make it off-road?<\/p>\n \u201cIn the beginning it was just me and a buddy saying, \u201cHey, it will be fun driving some cars around until they die,\u201d said founder Tate Morgan.<\/p>\n About a dozen members of a loose-knit club calling themselves the Gamblers kept the annual tradition going, adopting their own slang like \u201cABG\u201d (always be gambling) and \u201cpavement is lava\u201d\u2014 a reference to staying off-road as much as possible. Their rallies followed preset waypoints; they departed in staggered starts from a suburban Portland saloon\u2019s parking lot.<\/p>\n I met Morgan in the same saloon two and a half months before this year\u2019s event. He\u2019s huge\u20146 foot 4, 240 pounds\u2014with glacier blue eyes, unruly graying hair and a salt-and-pepper beard. A black bead of motor oil ringed his fingernails. His no-bullshit conversation style is layered with equal parts f-bombs and words like \u201cprescient,\u201d \u201cubiquitous\u201d and \u201cpropensity.\u201d<\/p>\n In a measured voice, he described facing two collisions a decade ago that scarred him and raised questions over survival\u2014 his own and his newfound hobby\u2019s. The first was discovering he had testicular cancer. The second resulted from a viral video<\/a> about the 2016 Gambler 500 event.<\/p>\n The following year, Morgan expected anywhere from a few dozen attendees to a couple of hundred. Instead, 3,000 people showed up in central Oregon. Chaos ensued. Lines. Parking headaches. U.S. Forest Service officers issued tickets for permit violations, and a citation to someone who had abandoned a broken-down vehicle.<\/p>\n All of which left Morgan with a decision: Kill his creation or breathe new life into it. He had grown up in Eugene, Oregon, as a true-believer environmentalist, weaned on activist\/author Edward Abbey and his 1975 novel \u201cThe Monkey Wrench Gang.\u201d Abbey encouraged others<\/a> to defend the Earth through \u201cany and every method which may be necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n But Morgan sought to build bridges, not detonate them. If Gamblers wanted to continue experiencing cheap outdoor fun, he decided, they needed to give something in return.<\/p>\n Gathered around their Madras camp, Brett Hrouda, the minibike-riding man under the three-cornered hat, and his friends described their converging paths, how an ancient Subaru earned its nickname, and their succinct plans for this year\u2019s Gambler 500.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re here to pick up some trash and do dumb shit,\u201d Hrouda, 47, said. He lives near Roseburg, Oregon, and splits time as a maintenance director and invoicing manager.<\/p>\n Shenanigans,<\/i> in his friend Tom Parker\u2019s words. Which is why Parker and his wife, Liz, left the kids at home for the big annual event.\u00a0Lots of vehicles, dust, and alcohol\u2014especially after dark. They\u2019ve been attending Gambler events for a few years now, including smaller weekend gatherings.<\/p>\n Hrouda tells us he finds peace while driving in the backcountry, \u201cjust following dirt roads wherever they go.\u201d Until the trail leads to trash piles, where his patience peters out. The Gambler 500 rings on Tom Parker\u2019s fingers spell out their disdain for litterbugs, with ominous mottos like \u201cThrow trash, catch hands,\u201d and more pointedly, \u201cKill all litterbugs.\u201d<\/p>\n To be clear, the organization embraces solutions and education\u2014not violence. An event flyer, for example, emphasized \u201cdo not engage with or collect trash from active houseless population.\u201d<\/p>\n Liz Parker can see that her children are learning lessons from the adults.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I love about this is that our kids are in the habit now of saying, \u2018Mom, there\u2019s trash in that ditch,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThey see it and call it out. We\u2019re passing stewardship on to the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n Tom Parker, 40, a power-line arborist from Camas Valley, Oregon, paid $350 for his first Gambler car, a Subaru, and pushed it hard for three years. Returning from a beer run, he heard sputtering. The rear-view mirror revealed clouds of black and gray smoke, signifying the Subaru\u2019s impending death.<\/p>\n He traded an old dirt bike for another Subaru\u2014a 1985 GL hatchback chopped down into a makeshift pickup. The car bore no nickname until last year\u2019s Gambler 500, when the Parkers and Hrouda strapped an abandoned sofa and other junk onto the Subaru\u2019s back. Returning to camp, they watched in horror as an animal scurried from the sofa into the cab. It was a rat.<\/p>\n Tom Parker braked hard, skidding. He tried to corner the rat. Liz Parker screamed and struggled to unbuckle, panicked. She wanted out.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t do rodents,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing worse than trying to bail out of a vehicle and the seatbelt won\u2019t disengage.\u201d<\/p>\n The intruder didn\u2019t survive the experience but is memorialized in the vehicle\u2019s nickname: the Subarat.<\/p>\n An insistent wind whipped dust and toppled the Parkers\u2019 tent. As they righted it, a neighbor appeared, duct tape in hand. Did they have a quarter-inch adapter for a three-eighths drive torque wrench? No. I asked why it was needed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have too many pieces of shit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Keeping a collection of misfit motorized contraptions running can be a full-time endeavor, explained my new friend, Matt Vanella. Vanella and his crew had a rickshaw concocted from a scooter, wood and spare parts; a riding lawn mower towing a rickety wooden cart; a trike melded from bicycle and all-terrain vehicle parts, secured by scrap wood and yards of wrapped twine; and a \u201creverse trike,\u201d consisting of a scooter crossbred with an ATV, supporting a forward-facing rider on a boat seat.<\/p>\n While maintaining this Frankenstein fleet, Vanella said, he and his pals were simultaneously scouting marked dump sites through the Sons of Smokey app. They sought trophy trash to parade into camp. Something big, but not too heavy. Like a fiberglass boat.<\/p>\n It turned out that Vanella and friends\u2014Noah Hilton, John Rushing, Matt Wong and Eric Swanson, all from Oregon\u2014were my camp neighbors. Swanson, 48, a cybersecurity engineer, was the mechanical mastermind.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was in high school, I basically lived in the auto shop,\u201d Swanson told me. \u201cThis recruiter came to school, and he asked me, \u2018Do you want to be doing this when you\u2019re 50?\u2019 And the answer was no, not as a full-time job. But as a hobby I need that creative outlet that\u2019s tangible, physical.\u201d<\/p>\n Afterwards, Vanella, 42, a facility manager from Albany, Oregon, cajoled me into a ride on the reverse trike. He piloted it from atop the scooter, and\u00a0 I clambered into the front-mounted seat. No helmets for us. Just Vanella urging me to lean left, lean right<\/i> to keep us from tipping. Shorts riffling in the wind, I felt giddy, thoughts ricocheting between staying upright and wondering how I would explain a concussion or broken collarbone to my wife.<\/p>\n Making new friends. Laughing uncontrollably at high speed. Doing dumb shit. Was I hitchhiking my way onto the Gambler highway? Judge for yourself: my neighbors recorded the weekend on video.<\/a><\/p>\n I found myself in the back seat of their Ford pickup an hour later, bouncing toward a marked trash site seven miles east of camp. Matt Wong, reading from the Sons of Smokey app, called out the turns, while Matt Vanella and the others kept a running commentary. We towed a tilting flatbed trailer. The rough gravel backroads did their best to rock me between the two Matts.<\/p>\n You\u2019re in a Matt sandwich, one of the front-seat wags announced. A Matt-wich, said another. That kind of imagery just writes itself, one suggested faux-helpfully, then asked: Can you actually smuggle all this into your article?<\/p>\n (I think I just did.)<\/p>\n The app had marked our target as \u201cthe back half of a truck.\u201d Instead, we found the rusted remains of a semi truck\u2019s front end, including the motor, embedded in the roadside dirt. We figured it weighed almost a ton\u2014far too heavy to lift by hand.<\/p>\n Lacking a winch, Hilton and friends rigged a series of heavy-duty ratchet straps and chains to the metal mass. Inch by inch, they coaxed it up the tilted flatbed. On the ride back, I recalled an old trucker anthem called \u201cLooking at the World Through a Windshield,\u201d and its driver \u201cseeing everything in a little bit different light.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, long strips of rubber that you see<\/i> This big-rig remnant, having rusted on public land for years, rolled into camp on our trailer. An excavator\u2019s jaws clamped tight and tossed it to the ground. Next stop: a metal recycler.<\/p>\n From 2017 on, Morgan worked to establish Gambler chapters across the country. He refused to turn it into a money machine, but sought sponsors to defray costs for the annual event.<\/p>\n Morgan established the Gambler\u2019s non-profit arm, Sons of Smokey, with a mission of facilitating \u201cthe collection and disposal of trash from public lands, while fostering a non-partisan movement for stewardship of the outdoors.\u201d<\/p>\n He is proud of what they have been able to do over time\u2014especially collecting more than 6 million pounds of trash.<\/p>\n Rambling around and outside Morgan\u2019s shop in West Linn, Oregon, he described the lineage of his odd collection of Gambler cars, from doorless SUVs to an ugly Saturn and a dilapidated Datsun pickup.<\/p>\n The Gambler event no longer requires participants to invest $500 or less in their cars, but Morgan still embraces the ethic of making something out of next to nothing. That came through as he described applying layers of resin and paint on a car he was given for free.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like celebrating the shittiness of it,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause you can never lose if you\u2019re kind of shitty on purpose. Which is kind of the gambler mantra\u2014you know we\u2019re not playing that game of trying to outspend or be faster or bigger or stronger than someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n By keeping event fees low and allowing chapters in other states to use the Gambler name for free, Morgan says, \u201cI got to keep my people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThen by making it about trash and conservation stewardship, I\u2019m also betting that everyone who comes out isn\u2019t blinded by politics or some kind of fucking asshole,\u201d he says. \u201cWe might disagree on a lot of stuff, but if you keep that and maybe your hate speech to yourself, it\u2019ll be fine.\u201d<\/p>\n As the morning buzz of minibikes mounted, my nose led me to the neighbors\u2019 camp, where eggs, link sausages and hash browns sizzled. No trash cleanups planned today, they told me\u2014too many maimed machines to repair. The reverse trike\u2019s carburetor kept flooding, and the riding lawnmower\u2019s belt was toast.<\/p>\n Which left me hitching a new trash-hunting ride. I spied a convoy of cars and pickups forming, and an empty seat in a Toyota. The driver motioned for me to hop in. Like many of the Gamblers I met, the driver, Tyler Knudson of Corvallis, Oregon, is a military veteran.<\/p>\n After four years as a Navy helicopter mechanic, Knudson faced no insurmountable obstacles in transplanting a Volkswagen diesel engine into his 1990 Toyota 4Runner. In arcane detail, like play-by-play for a sport I will never comprehend, Knudson recited descriptions of TDIs and ALH engine codes, adapter plates and transversely mounted motors, drive shafts and mounting points.<\/p>\n After a few minutes\u2019 drive and a bumpy turn down a dirt trail, we descended into Willow Creek Canyon. A striking tan-green horizon melded into gray clouds. Until we stopped the cars and could fully comprehend all that waited in the sagebrush.<\/p>\n Up close, it appeared as if a garbage barge had run aground in a storm. Rusting cans. Broken bottles. Mattress springs. A rotting steer carcass. Moldy clothing. A car fender.<\/p>\n One of our convoy members, Colton Baker of Cheney, Washington, tried fitting the scene into words.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t get how people look at this beautiful view and go, \u2018You know, what would be even better? Garbage,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Knudson loaned me a pair of gloves, and we all bent knees and began filling garbage bags. Knudson strapped hunks of metal and wood on the Toyota\u2019s roof. Our convoy\u2019s informal leader, Bob Keeton of Port Orchard, Washington, corralled us back toward camp after an hour or so, acknowledging that we had made a dent. But there might be days of trash remaining.<\/p>\n \u201cThis whole litter issue is so complex,\u201d he told me. \u201cSome of it is a product of laziness. Some is desperation. To keep my mental peace, I\u2019ve resolved that I don\u2019t care how it got here. I only care where it ends up.\u201d<\/p>\n He likes hunting tires, he said. That afternoon I found him in camp by the dumpsters, his 2003 Subaru Baja piled high with discarded rubber.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it cost me a drive shaft, though,\u201d he said, nodding at the Subaru. \u201cThat\u2019s why I brought a trailer\u2014we\u2019re not\u00a0driving it home.\u201d<\/p>\n Attendees keep camp neat by packing out their own trash or placing\u00a0 it in the dumpsters. Cars that are disabled are towed out, given away or taken to auto recyclers.<\/p>\n Keeton\u2019s was not the only vehicle that failed to survive the weekend. In camp, a hand-lettered cardboard sign on a green 2002 Saab 9-3 summarized the damage done by trail rocks: \u201cFree: Hole in oil pan.\u201d<\/p>\n Its owner, John McKenzie of Fort Collins, Colorado, had paid $700 for the car the day before in Madras. It returned from a Saturday trail exploration on a trailer. McKenzie\u2019s friend, Russell Caldwell of Mountain Home, Idaho, said that\u2019s pretty much the standard Gambler auto experience.<\/p>\n \u201cWe wait to find a good deal on one that needs a motor\u2014something that\u2019s been used and abused and broken, then we bring it back to life,\u201d Caldwell said. \u201cYeah, then usually break it. Then re-break it.\u201d<\/p>\n Re-creation and recreation. Not unlike Mary Shelley\u2019s descriptions of Dr. Frankenstein\u2019s \u201cwhirlwind passions.\u201d When the pressure became too great, the fictional doctor described \u201cbending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, (seeking) in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n By the end of the Madras event, the 4,000 in attendance put up some substantial numbers: More than 391,000 pounds of trash collected. Fourteen cars, eight RVs, four boats. More than 2,500 tires.<\/p>\n The organization\u2019s cleanup efforts have won praise from land managers and outdoors enthusiasts. Environmental groups, however, contend that off-roaders\u2014like mining operations and oil drillers\u2014are exploiting public lands.<\/p>\n\u2018Driving Some Cars Around Until They Die\u2019<\/h2>\n
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How an Ancient Subaru Earned Its Nickname<\/h2>\n
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Maintaining a Frankenstein Fleet<\/h2>\n
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<\/i>Were burnt off of this rig by the likes of me<\/i>
<\/i>And they\u2019ll rot along the highways in this land.<\/i><\/p>\n\u2018I Got to Keep My People\u2019<\/h2>\n
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All That Awaited in the Sagebrush<\/h2>\n
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More Than 391,000 Pounds of Trash Collected<\/h2>\n
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