Daryl's Racing Pigs sprint through Stutsman County Fair

Jul. 3—JAMESTOWN — For the second year in a row, Daryl Lies and his racing pigs came to the Stutsman County Fair to entertain people with his humor and the speedy swine.

"I really love doing the show, I like being around people, you get to see anywhere from little kids to grandma and grandpa with a smile on their face and chuckling," he said. "So, it's fun to work with the crowd. After 36 years of traveling doing it, the traveling gets old but once I get to the fair and get to the show part it's a lot of fun."

Lies first started racing pigs when he was 14 years old as his Future Farmers of America (FFA) project.

"(I) grew up on a farm raising pigs, that's why I wanted to do it," Lies said. "(It) took me till I got to FFA to leverage my AG teacher and FFA adviser against my dad, not against but to leverage against my dad to give him to comfort to say 'OK, let's go do it.'"

Lies was not doing the whole thing by himself though as he had help from local kids from 4-H and his family. Lies touts his ability to train multiple kinds of pigs and said the easiest-to-train pigs are those with ears that stand up.

"They're less timid," Lies said. "The ones with the floppier ears, their sight line is kind of restricted a little bit so they got a little more cautious generally. So that's the main reason there but they can still be trained, it just takes a little different training."

Daryl's Racing Pigs put on two races every day of the fair, three times per day. The first race saw four pigs run around while the second race saw six pigs run in color-coordinated bibs. Before the second race started, one of the kids helping out Lies handed out tickets to vote on who they thought would win. The pigs that win each race were incentivized with cherry Kool-Aid. Lies said the pigs are determined to win the race so that they can get more Kool-Aid than their fellow competitors.

"They like sweet stuff, they can taste that sweet and they get a limited amount and that's the only time they get it," Lies said. "That's the only time they get sweet Kool-Aid is when they run the race."

Lies and his racing pigs tour the Midwest, going to North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming.

"I get paid to do it at the fairs," Lies said. "So, theoretically, I do this to make money, so hopefully it doesn't cost me much but traveling up and down the road is not cheap, price of fuel, price of tires, wear and tear on vehicles, price of vehicles nowadays. So, there is a lot of things that go into it."

The experience was one that spans the test of time as Melissa Schneider said she wanted to see the races after seeing them when she was a kid.

"I used to watch them up in Minot at the state fair when I was young," Schneider said. "So, I was really excited to see they were here."

One of the people in attendance on Saturday, July 1, was Bennie Jetton.

"I like watching the racing pigs and I love the fair, the county fair every year, I look forward to it," Jetton said.

Jetton said he enjoys the entertainment factor that comes from watching the pigs run.

"The racing pigs are kind of funny, you know what I'm saying, to see them move around the track," Jetton said. "But at the same time, I know they're healthy."

The pigs that race this year will not be the same that race next year, though, as Lies said they slaughter the pigs in the winter and turn them into food.

Lies said he prefers to spend two to three hours building the track and the rest of the set-up but that he can get it done in an hour to an hour and a half if he needs to.

The racing pigs business is not the only thing that Lies does as he is also a farmer in Douglas and the president of the North Dakota Farm Bureau.

"It works out pretty well," Lies said. "I ended up doing the racing pigs down here at Stutsman County, at the same time that the Stutsman County Farm Bureau was having their annual meeting. So I got to take in their annual meeting and be there because I try to make some annual meetings as the Farm Bureau president for the state too. So, it works out really good in some cases."