Demolition Derby!

Saturday night in Evanston, Wyoming and we (and much of the town) headed to the Volunteer Fire Department's fund raiser: demolition derby. The combination of derby and volunteer firemen was indeed a good one as foot-long flames shot out of the hood of one powderpuff entry and one driver was taken away in an ambulance (after they cut the roof off of his car).

If you, like us, are unfamiliar with how a demolition derby works, here are some (but not all) of the rules:

• For all of the participant cars, the windows are taken out, roll-over bars are installed as a safety measure and the drivers wear helmets. I estimate the average car age was 25 years+
• Each round featured 3 to 6 cars - grouped by size of car and driver's gender (hence the "powderpuff" round)
• Cars had to make (at least) one hit per minute (and got warned at the 30 second mark if they hadn't made any hits recently)
• No one is allowed to hit another car on the driver's door
• Good drivers were able to hit other cars while going backwards (and thus protect their own engine)
• The round continues until just one car is either running (or is the only one who made a hit in the last minute)

Remarkably, some cars survived for an additional round - the later rounds were a lot faster since these cars had already been pretty well smashed. Cars that don't win but were still running could return for later for these "grudge match" rounds.











The car in front (above) appeared to benefit greatly from having rear-wheel drive. Notice him facing backward as he executes a textbook reverse hit. If we were to start competing we would seek out rear-wheel drive. Our new Hyundai does not have this...


In this round, drivers were allowed to wrap chains around their front and rear ends, which may have prolonged the usefulness of their bumpers.