Posted: Saturday, 06 September 2008 1:14PM
Demolition Derbies Still Rolling
AP Reporting
|
Riverhead NY -- At a crowded racetrack on a Saturday night, the spectators begin chanting a countdown to the evening's final event. When they hit zero, chaos follows. A dozen cars thunder off in every direction, blasting into each other's fenders in a growing percussion of gut-thumping thuds.
Soon, smoke is billowing from engines, rubber tires are shredded down to steel wheels that screech and squeal as the competitors squeeze every last breath out of their dying machines. Sparks fly in all directions as torn-off steel scratches pavement and the odor of burnt rubber and God-knows-what burning under the hoods fills the lungs.
The demolition derby is back in town.
Demolition derbies have been a staple at American racetracks and county fairs since at least World War II _ and remain hugely popular to this day. An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 are held every summer, according to Tory Schutte, founder of the Wisconsin-based Demolition Derby Drivers Association.
But derbies are constantly confronted with new challenges. They occasionally turn dangerous, as evidenced by a fireball that engulfed a driver at Riverhead Raceway in July, and drivers are increasingly being forced to compete with newer, smaller cars as the behemoths from the '70s and '80s that make ideal derby vehicles slowly disappear.
The criteria for crowning a demolition derby champion has not changed, however: Be the last driver behind the wheel of a vehicle that can still move.
The temptation to smash a vehicle to smithereens is universal, derby drivers insist, just ask anyone who has ever been stuck in maddening traffic jams or behind someone going 30 mph in the fast lane.
``Since I started competing in demolition derbies I've gotten rid of my road rage,'' Schutte says.
``Most kids get yelled at for wrecking a car. I can go out and have a ball doing it and I don't get in trouble for it,'' said James White Jr., who at 19 is among the youngest competitors at Riverhead's demolition derbies.
Schutte is a self-appointed expert on ``demos.'' His research finds they likely started in the late 1930s and early 1940s somewhere in the Midwest, although specific details are murky. Early contests were held at places like O'Hare Airport and Soldier's Field in Chicago, and Hale's Corner, Wis., he said.
The first major national exposure for demolition derby came in the early 1960s, when Jim McKay would televise from Islip Speedway on Long Island on ABC's ``Wide World of Sports'' on Saturday afternoons.
``ABC helped bring in thousands of people,'' says Marty Himes, a racing historian who runs a modest museum in Bay Shore on Long Island. ``If you didn't get a seat by 6 o'clock, you'd be standing up all night at Islip.''
Schutte, who claims to represent 25,000 drivers and runs the Wecrash.com Web site, says he has been pushing to standardize derby rules. But with no official sanctioning body, that has been a chore.
Basically, all derby vehicles must have a protective cage around the driver. Batteries and gas tanks are often moved inside the passenger compartment, making them less likely to be ignited into fireballs by the sparks that fly during crashes. Doors are usually welded shut and bumpers are taken off.
The combination of rising scrap metal prices and the popularity of derbies has made it more difficult each year for competitors to find suitable junkers to use in competition. Tracks like Riverhead offer contests in various categories including school buses and 8-cylinder and 4-cylinder cars. Track promoters buy school buses at a discount after the vehicles are deemed no longer safe for schoolchildren.
``Tell me it's not every kid's dream to come out and see that school bus that takes you to that rotten school be destroyed,'' says Bob Rommeney.
In the 1970s, Rommeney used to drive from his home in Queens to compete in Islip, but now makes the 140-mile roundtrip with his sons farther east to Riverhead Raceway nearly every weekend, where his eldest, 30-year-old Mike, is the defending demolition derby champion. Younger son Kevin is beginning to race in some of the NASCAR-type competitions that precede the derby.
``You get it in your blood,'' says Bob Rommeney, who helps his sons build their cars. ``You see your father doing something and you want to learn it.''
Mike Rommeney, who has been competing for nearly 14 years, says there is a strategy behind the chaos.
``People think it's easy to go out and wreck a car,'' he said. ``You've got to hit somebody every 60 seconds. But you don't have to hit that person at 60 mph. You hit him 20, 10 miles an hour, but don't hit him with a solid shot.
``Hit him on his fender. Let somebody else destroy their car on that guy, and you wait until the end, then you've got a perfect car, they're halfway dead and then you kill him.''
Rommeney and James White were both hospitalized following a derby at Riverhead on July 5, when gasoline leaking from White's car ignited after a collision with Rommeney. White, who was covered in flames for several seconds, was severely burned.
Although doctors told him he would be hospitalized for at least six weeks, he left in 16 days. He returned to the track on Aug. 16 for a derby involving compact, 4-cylinder vehicles.
Drivers around pit row were amazed that White returned to competition so quickly.
"The kid's a survivor, he's a go-getter,'' said driver Edward Mistretta, who has known White since he was a child. ``He doesn't give up, he doesn't quit.''
White said he was eager to get back into competition.
``Everything's healing, everything's wrapped up,'' he said. ``My doctor gave me the OK to go. He said just make sure to wear a fire suit.'' White was not wearing a protective fire suit in the July crash; they are not mandatory at Riverhead derbies.
As competitors in the 4-cylinder derby fell to the wayside with busted wheels or blown engines, the final two entrants on the track were Rommeney's yellow Chevy Cavalier nicknamed ``Cheesebox'' and White's black-white-and red Pontiac Sunfire called ``The Kid.''
Squaring off in the middle of the track infield, the two vehicles resembled mechanical dinosaurs jousting to the death with a quarry of wounded competitors strewn about.
Rommeney threw Cheesebox in reverse for 10 yards, then lurched forward into White's car with a mighty thud. Then White sprang backward before shifting gears and smashing head-on into Rommeney from about 10 yards. Cheesebox, now with its trunk completely obliterated, appeared dead.
But with one last gasp, Rommeney backed up again and slammed into White, extinguishing any sign of life in the teenager's Pontiac. White said afterward he wasn't disappointed to finish second.
``It felt great'' he said afterward. ``It was the medicine I needed.'' |
Copyright MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
|
|
|
|
