2009 Monroe County Demo Derby

On July 25th, Sean and I went to our first demo derby in IL. I had been to them before, but Sean had not. We got there early because we didn't want to pay the $15 admission (if you got there before 3 admission was free). Unfortunately most of the displays were already gone since it was the second to last day of the fair so there wasn't much to see. We did see some tractors, a few commercial displays, and part of the horse cart competition. I don't remember the correct name, but people had their horses or mules pull a cart around and got judged on it. We also walked around the ride area, got some fair food and people watched while we waited.

The derby started at 7:30 and by about 7 it was pretty much full with people starting to stand around the fences. There were 4 heats where the last 3 cars went to the finals, plus 2 runner-up rounds where any car still running could again compete and the last 3 went to the finals so there were 18 cars in the final total. Plus they had a pick-up truck feature between the 4th heat and the 1st runner-up round to give them time to fix up their cars (if possible). We ended up leaving before the finals because we wanted to beat traffic and we had gotten our fill of cars smashing each other and the kids behind us.

Here are a couple of pictures:




One interesting story: car 22 (not pictured - it was too dark) got its trunk smashed up in the back so that it blocked the entire back window. Then it got its passenger side A pillar smashed so that the roof began collapsing on the driver's head. It looked like the roof was resting on the driver's helmet, but the guy still kept driving around hitting people. I have no idea how he could see. Then its driver's side A pillar began to give out and that's when the judges flagged him out because he couldn't see anymore.

We also saw several cars pushed out of the arena and one almost hit a guy. All in all, it was a fun time.