Demolition Derby

This weekend my parents took us to a demolition derby. We thought our boys would like it, and turns out we were right. What we didn't expect was how much fun we had watching those cars smash into each other!

The first round was very exciting, and two of the cars couldn't be separated after the end of the round. They had a tow truck and a huge tractor trying to get them apart. The chain on the two truck broke trying to pull it so hard. It took them a really long time to get those two cars apart. Turns out one of the two took second place overall.

Oh, and speaking of scoring, I had never been to a demolition derby, so I didn't realize the cars had to have a qualifying hit (to a car still "in") every two minutes. They apparently also get points for being more aggressive, but since I wasn't in for the pot of money I didn't find out all the rules (I value my spine/neck strength more than the $3,000 first prize).

I was shocked at how long some of those cars kept running! You would see a tire completely on its side (barely attached) and the driver would gun up the car and still go around smashing into other cars. That part made me laugh a lot. We had one car that somehow ended up on top of the cement barricade unable to get down. That was another tricky one for them to figure out at the end of the round.

Here are some pictures from the fun. Look at the trunk on this car after his first round. What amazed me even more was that he came back for another round! (I couldn't believe how often I thought a car was out for sure, and then it would re-appear for another round!)

This is the car that ended up on the cement barricade (gotta love the paint job):

For whatever reason, I really wanted this purple station wagon to win. Can you imagine a purple station wagon winning a demolition derby? Obviously, that wasn't the case:

This is how they got one car out of the arena after its round:


Most of the cars were pretty beat-up to begin, so I knew this car looked just way too pretty at the start:

Here's what it looked like more toward the end, although I think it still did another round after this one:

And really the pictures don't tell the full fun of the event, so here's a short video clip to help you see the real action:

We finally left since the kids were starving and the concessions were sold out. From what I understand we missed the best two rounds -- during the Powder Puff competition one of the girls flipped her car upside down on top of another one (nobody hurt), and the last round had to have the jaws of life come get a guy out. (He hurt his shoulder but was okay otherwise.) I don't know how those guys don't get hurt more, especially since many of them weren't wearing shoulder seatbelts, and none of them had windshields to protect them from flying metal! (We did see one with chicken wire, which I thought was a good idea -- although then he had to get into his car through the window instead of the windshield. :)

On the way home I kept thinking we should ram into everyone who got in our way. Maybe it's a good thing Paul drove, huh?

Overall we had a blast and think next year we'll go and leave the kids at home. :) I highly recommend you join us!