By Stephen Poor
This new arena opened in Salt Lake City last December. Since
then the arena has gained a tremendous following. The arena is
incredibly popular with the youth of SLC and Logan as the home of
the BYU duelling team. Deliberate killing in the arena is
strictly forbidden, and grudge matches are against arena policy.
The exterior walls and central obstacle are 15' tall and
indestructible. The interior walls are 20 DP and 10' tall. The
central obstacle has pedestrian boltholes on every face. The
dots on the map indicate floodlights for afterdark duelling.
Note that line of sight is restricted to the track surface.
Several special events are held in the Battleground. But most
events are standard duels Division 30 is particularly popular.
Though not particularly popular with the locals, the Blood 'n'
Guts Network (BON) sponsors races, mostly because two highspeed
90 turns in rapid succession make for an exciting heat.
One unique and popular BGN event is the TruckCycle Smashup.
Each competitor drives a pickup, with a cycle in the bed. Each
truck goes three laps, counter clockwise. At the end of the third
lap, the driver mounts the cycle (moving from the truck to the
cycle takes Id+4 seconds roll randomly for each competitor,
attacks on either vehicle or the driver during this time are
strictly forbidden), jumps from the back of the truck and goes
three, more laps clockwise. These events are usually held with a
combined budget of $40,000 for both vehicles.
BGN also sponsors the Maypole Race. The Race is usually held
with Sprint, Indy Cars, CanAm or Funny Cars. Tire shots are
forbidden. In this event, cars starting from oddnumbered gates
go clockwise, while those starting from evennumbered gates go
the opposite way. This race usually offers one or two spectacular
rams with blood and confetti all over.
A popular event with the locals is nightduelling. The
floodlights are adjusted for anything from twilight to completely
off, and the spectators watch with IR goggles (borrowed from the
arena; car keys must be checked as collateral they haven't
lost a pair yet). Searchlights are allowed in this event, as a
weapon used to blind opponents.
In duels where they're allowed, dropped weapons tend to
dominate in the battleground, as they make it easy to seal off
the track.
In the Track/Cycle Smashup, trucks often sport ramplates, to
swat oncoming cycles. The cycles favor tire shots against
pickups, and are usually sloped (it takes fine shooting indeed to
hit a sloped cycle headon).
In night duels, few duellists waste money on an IR sighting
system, when IR goggles work just as well. Unusual weapons like
glowinthedark paint guns and sprays, and tracer ammunition
(no special effect in combat, but they look great from the
stands) are popular. Searchlights and impactfused flash
grenades become deadly weapons. Drivers without polarized
windshields are unheard of. "Starlight Scopes" and
other nonIR lightenhancing devices can result in permanent
eye injury if worn while viewing a flare, searchlight or laser,
and are strictly forbidden.
Ram cars dominate the Maypole races. Roll cages and bumper spikes back make the best defense. C/A frames are suicide in a Maypole!
