2 Utahns compete in Bricklayer 500 competition in Las Vegas

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LAS VEGAS — Two Utah masons built a wall in Las Vegas last week.

Trint Pierce, of Spanish Fork, and Brian Tuttle, of Elk Ridge, competed in the SpecMix Bricklayer 500 Nationals competition in Las Vegas on Jan. 23.

Some of the best bricklayers in the world go head-to-head at the event to compete for prizes that include thousands of dollars in cash, masonry equipment and a new Ford pickup truck.

Tuttle was the runner-up in the competition and Pierce placed sixth. Competitors come from all over the world — as far away as Australia and New Zealand — so it’s great to see Utah represented, Pierce said.

“That’s why it was kind of cool,” he said. “There’s all these competitors, and there’s two guys from Utah that were able to go and compete nationally.”

Both Pierce and Tuttle competed in September at the Utah regional competition held at Interstate Brick in Salt Lake City. Pierce won the regional, advancing to the national competition.

Tuttle won the national competition last year, so he automatically qualified for this year’s competition. His brother, Scott, won the competition in 2012.

The brothers have been competing since 2004, the second year the Bricklayer 500 took place, Brian Tuttle said.

“Between my brother and I, we’ve been in every competition since,” he said. “We have four wins together.”

During each stage of the competition, each entrant has an hour to lay as much brick as possible in a double-width wall. Each bricklayer also has a helper, known as a tender, who lays out bricks and mortar beforehand.

After the hour is up, each competitor is scored on a series of judging criteria and gets deductions for imperfections.

Brian Tuttle was hoping to win this year’s Bricklayer 500, but ended up coming in second. As he prepared for the event, he built practice walls and laid more than 700 bricks for each wall.

“That’s when you know you’re getting up ready to win is when you lay 700-plus with no deductions,” Brian Tuttle said.

Though masonry might not be as high-profile here as it is in the East, Pierce said it’s still important in Utah.

“There’s a huge community of masons,” he said. “There’s a lot of us.”

Even without an organized contest, masonry is a very competitive trade, Tuttle said. To do well in the industry, you have to be competitive, he said.

The Tuttle brothers have been in business together since 2003, and they compete with one another, Brian Tuttle said. Scott wants to beat his older brother, while Brian wants to prove that just because Scott is younger doesn’t mean he can do more work, Brian Tuttle said.

“That’s what’s great about this trade is you can get the experience you need,” he said, “then you can take that experience and build your own business and take it wherever you want it to go.”