One Demolition Contest Enough for These Amateur Derby Drivers

Robert “The Wrecker” Rice’s advice was as straightforward as a car crash--which, in fact, was what he was advising about.

“Try to protect the front end, because you know that’s mostly what’s going to knock the car out,” said Rice, one of Southern California’s winningest demolition derby drivers. “Stand on the gas and motivate the car around.”

Thanks, Wrecker. Only you left out one teensy-weensy detail: It also helps if you can get your car started.

That proved to be my downfall in my first--and God willing, only--attempt at demolition derby driving on closing night at the Los Angeles County Fair in Pomona. The seven-car intermission competition was billed as the Celebrity Challenge, apparently because “Pathetic, Hapless Loser Challenge” wouldn’t fit in the program. But the longer title certainly does a better job of summing up the competition.

One car (mine) wouldn’t start; another started but never moved, because the transmission failed; and a third caught fire midway through the 20-minute competition. Those of us trapped in the stationary cars made inviting targets for the rest of the field--my Army-green Dodge Diplomat took three head-rattling, teeth-jarring shots in the first minute alone, and I was helpless to do anything about it.

“It’s just like a game of bumper cars,” Sid Robinson, communications manager for Fairplex, had assured me before the race. Right. And World War II was just like a game of tag.

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The cars, all full-size American-made cars provided by an auto recycler, were once someone’s pride and joy. But on this night, more than 25 years after they rolled off the assembly line, the cars were little more than battered shells of their former selves. Each was outfitted with just one seat and a shoulder harness. A 6-gallon plastic jug filled with gasoline, a stand-in for the fuel tank, was taped to the floor where the back seat should have been.

As I struggled to spark my ignition to life while keeping my steering column from dropping into my lap, radio personalities Pete Fox and Jeff Pope of San Bernardino station KCXX-FM (103.9) and Judy Croon of Colton’s KFRG-FM (95.1) tried to pound one another into submission. Croon, who looks a lot like actress Geena Davis, appeared ashen before the competition started and drove tentatively once the green flag dropped. But a solid hit to her front bumper woke her up, and her maniacal style quickly made her the crowd favorite.

“At first, I was scared,” she said later. “But after I got hit, I got mad.”

Meanwhile, off in the corner, my thumb had turned purple and swollen to twice its normal size from my frantic efforts to get the key to turn in the ignition when the engine finally sprang to life. My car hadn’t moved in more than 15 minutes, which meant that, technically, I had long since been disqualified. But, technically, that didn’t matter at this point: I had come out intent on hitting someone, and I wasn’t leaving until I got at least one shot in.

As I sped--”speed” being a relative term here--across the muddy track, announcer Larry Huffman became apoplectic shouting for the disqualified car (read: me) to stop. But it was too late. I already had Fox in my sights, and I nailed him just beyond the front of the driver’s-side door before my car stalled again.

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Despite my best efforts to knock him out of the race, Fox wound up the winner. And as he crawled atop his car--which bore major front-end damage, thanks to me--to accept his trophy, I crawled out the passenger-side window of my Diplomat with a sore thumb, a tender elbow, a splitting headache and a severely bruised ego.

As we waited for the tow trucks to haul the remnants of our cars from the track, the newly aggressive Croon--who goes by the on-air name of Ann Phibian--offered a smile and an observation.

“That was fun,” she said. “But I’m never gonna do that again.”