I want to drive!

Saturday was the county fair demolition derby. I had never been to a demolition derby before and I wasn't quite sure what I was imagining was going to happen... What did happen was the best entertainment EVER. If you've never been before, imagine 16 normal, beat-up, oldcars -- like Crown Vics, Dusters, Cutlasses, Escort wagons -- with a home-grown paint job (a few were very professional, including a General Lee clone). They have local business's (sponsors, I assume) names along side their kids' written in spray paint and each have a random number like 2, 69, 96, 4zn, $1.05, 7086, U24r.

So, they get lined up in a space about a half football field, 8 per end-zone with their rears facing each other. When the flags go up, they try and disable their opponents by smashing into each other. The rules seem to be that you can only go so long without having a crash and you can't directly impact the driver's side on purpose. There are these men running around in neon yellow shirts monitoring the action and occasionally everyone has to stop while firefighters extinguish flames from under hoods. I think it takes more balls to be one of the flag-men than a driver -- they're so close to the crashing. Skid-loaders shove cars back into the ring which is bordered by logs under a lot of mud.

Four rounds (called heats) of this commence with new cars each time. The last four standing in each heat go on to the final. The people seem to have time to work on the cars after their heat and before the final. There's also a consolation heat for people who got knocked out but fixed their cars up before the end and then those four winners can go on to the final too. I was amused the entire 3 and a half hours standing, hands clutching the steel fence and mouth half open, occasionally yelling with glee even in the rain that snuck up for about 30 minutes of our time in Augusta.