I’m sitting at the computer, near midnight, digesting fair food (read: funnel cake, overly sweet tea and deep-fried Snickers…don’t you judge me!) and I’m trying to make sense of what I just bore witness to about two hours ago. I’m not sure if I enjoyed it. Part of me feels dumb for watching it, and part of me is thinking about joining this madness.

I’ve done demolition derby before. When I was somewhere about 13-14 we built a late-70s Pontiac Catalina coupe into a D-car. It did pretty well at Spanaway Speedway during the heat races, but during the main event some dude in a ’69 Chrysler decided to take out all of his parental anger issues on the poor Poncho and in one swift shot absolutely screwed that car over. I didn’t run the race, but I did learn some of my “you shouldn’t know how to drive like that” tricks in that car. Neutral drops? Yup. Ripping into Reverse to get the ass end of the car to safety? Did it.

After an already tiring day of hunting through a swap meet and shopping with the wife (it balances), we found ourselves at the Warren County Fairgrounds. After eating the kind of dinner that would give a cardiologist a conniption fit, we made our way down to the track. She grabbed a seat and we waited for the track prep to be completed. While they were grading down the dirt and running a compactor over everything, this old International was chugging around. Pretty cool.

Dig those zip-tied hubcaps!

The racing was supposed to start at 7 p.m. Instead, the racing kicked off at about 8:15 p.m. due to unforeseen circumstances…like being late being an effect of not preparing the track ahead of time, I guess. A couple of quick heats were ran by lawn mowers that had more in common with go-karts. At least a couple of them could move pretty quickly around the track.

These two were hauling some serious ass. Not quite sideways but it looked fun.

We stuck around for two derbies, mostly because I was flagging and didn’t want to remain around the crowds. Picture bearded men holding inflatable alien dolls under their arm, Kids Gone Wild 14: Spilling Coke Everywhere, and just about every other reason “people-spotting” is a thing. The first derby had the bonus of watching a lawn mower blow up in spectacular fashion. I didn’t even know they could do that!

KA-BOOM.

Then came the serious enthusiasts. These guys weren’t putting on a show. I honestly think that someone slept with someone else’s wife, because they were absolutely ramming the hell out of each other. There were gestures and indications that meant business. I doubt that these boys were gonna have a beer afterwards.

Tomorrow I have to pull the father-in-law’s John Deere lawn tractor out and get ready to mow a few acres with it. I wonder how fast that sucker can go…