While The Stueart Pennington World Championship Running of the Tubs is known for its wacky antics, things get more serious when the Battle of the Badge is on the line.
After a year off due to the pandemic, the Hot Springs Police Department defends its title today against the Hot Springs Fire Department.
The Running of the Tubs starts at 9 a.m. For the main event, competitors have to navigate three obstacles and things can get a little silly -- but the Battle of the Badge drops the shenanigans, if not the smack-talk.
Five firefighters and five police officers flat-out sprint to the finish line on Central Avenue in downtown Hot Springs to see which is the faster team. The police pulled off the victory in 2019, and the firefighters want their trophy back.
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"More than anything, we're planning on winning," Hot Springs police Cpl. Patrick Langley said.
The officers who make up the police team "go out and they do do a little bit of practicing and get a game plan together and go over the rules," Langley said, noting some of the rules in the race "are kind of funny."
Describing the race between the two departments, Langley said "The Battle of the Badge is a straight out sprint from one end to the other, and it's usually one of those may the best man win, or woman, but usually, obviously the police department is the better man in most cases."
Should the police repeat their victory, Langley said, "It'll mean things are getting back to normal."
Allen Goines, a driver for the fire department and captain of its race team, said he is looking forward to the race and expects the fire department to win.
"It's a good rivalry with another city department. You know PD has some good men and women, and they're over there because they couldn't pass our test. It's just one of those things that, you know, everybody wants to be a fireman and usually the cops want to be a fireman worse than the general public," he said.
As for how the police won the last race, Goines explained that "nobody wants to participate if they lose every time. We have won more titles than the police department, I think two times over, and we didn't want them to lose hope and just decide they didn't want to do it anymore so we kind of threw it a little bit."
A straight-faced Goines said the fire department is staffed based on how well their employees will perform in the Battle of the Badge.
"We actually hire people specifically based on how they are going to push the tub. That's one of the main interview questions we have," Goines said, matter-of-factly.
He suggested that, in the future, the race could move from the flat track of Central Avenue "maybe do North Mountain, but we got to get the brakes worked out."
Both Goines and Langley said they are excited to see a community event return to Hot Springs after a year like 2020.
"It's a community event that we are excited to participate in every year, so this year, obviously you know everything was canceled last year, like many things with COVID, it was canceled. We're ready to get back out there, have another community event, kind of renew our rivalry with the fire department," Langley said.
"I think everybody's ready for everything to open back up and get some normalcy back and just get out and get to have a good time with your friends and your neighbors."
