One of the things that Leann wanted to do before the baby comes [1] was see a demolition derby. I've been to once before, a few years ago, up in Logan, Utah. This last weekend there was one out in West Jordan. Leann bought tickets and invited her friend Jordan to come with us.[2]
In the middle of the stadium they had concrete curtains set up to contain the rampant cars from getting too close to the officiators or to the spectators.
Before the festivities started, the West Jordan mayor, the West Jordan beauty queen's attendants (the queen herself had other commitments to attend to), and a middle-school-aged boy came out on a truck. Then, to everyone's surprise, the boy sang the national anthem as though he were a girl—and he had the register to match. (That's him in the photograph.) Then the mayor and the beauty queen attendants jumped out of the truck for the first event.
They started off with a "beauty contest", where the most decorated cars came out and the audience voted on their favorites, as moderated by the mayor and the beauty queen attendants. Early on the two pink cars (the one on the left was for "cancer awareness" [3] and the one on the right was the only female driver), but the car on the far right, the "skullfish" car [4], managed to garner a louder section of the crowd for the win. My favorite was the blue car [5], second from the right, which had a license plate that said UFO.
Now let's face it, this is a hick event. And part of the reason for going to these things is to see the other people who show up.[6] We were not disappointed. The fellow in the top photograph had an awesome two-color mohawk, only surpassed by the two-color mohawk of his son (lower left corner of the photograph). The fellow in the bottom photograph had exactly the kind of teeth we were expecting to see. After taking the picture, I felt a little guilty because I noticed that he was probably mentally retarded. But he seemed to be having a good time, so I'm glad that he got to attend. And the ponytails his dad (behind him) and his grandpa (in front of him) were sporting certainly belong in the picture.
Periodically throughout the evening the two beauty queen attendants ran around the stadium throwing out t-shirts. One of them had trouble getting the t-shirts past the fourth row, but the other had an arm—she could launch them almost to the top of the bleachers. We managed to catch two. One of them was for the towing/junkyard company, Tear-A-Part, which I kept. The other was for the "skullfish" team and had a beanie rolled up inside. Leann kept the beanie and we gave the t-shirt to Jordan. I could've caught two more but I decided not to be greedy.
A few times we were spared the nervous chatter of the announcer and were presented with between-heats entertainment, including motorcycle barrel racing and a lawnmower race.
Throughout the evening there were some pretty great hits. Unfortunately, the memory card on the camera filled up, so I can't show you some of the best hits of the night (cars pushed up on the barriers, cars going up on two wheels, exploding radiators, engine fires, wheels knocked off their axles, etc.).
Notes:
[1] See my post It's a Girl!
[2] This is the same Jordan that went fishing with us at Salem Pond, back in March (see here).
[3] For some reason the mayor couldn't bring herself to say that it was for "breast cancer awareness".
[4] You can actually see some videos about their car and how it fared at their YouTube channel (here).
[5] It almost looked like a VW Rabbit, but I seriously doubt that's what it was.
[6] In fact, on the bench in front of us was a guy I went to high school with, though I couldn't remember his name. We acknowledged each other and our shared past, but I don't think he remembered my name, either.
In the middle of the stadium they had concrete curtains set up to contain the rampant cars from getting too close to the officiators or to the spectators.
Before the festivities started, the West Jordan mayor, the West Jordan beauty queen's attendants (the queen herself had other commitments to attend to), and a middle-school-aged boy came out on a truck. Then, to everyone's surprise, the boy sang the national anthem as though he were a girl—and he had the register to match. (That's him in the photograph.) Then the mayor and the beauty queen attendants jumped out of the truck for the first event.
They started off with a "beauty contest", where the most decorated cars came out and the audience voted on their favorites, as moderated by the mayor and the beauty queen attendants. Early on the two pink cars (the one on the left was for "cancer awareness" [3] and the one on the right was the only female driver), but the car on the far right, the "skullfish" car [4], managed to garner a louder section of the crowd for the win. My favorite was the blue car [5], second from the right, which had a license plate that said UFO.
Now let's face it, this is a hick event. And part of the reason for going to these things is to see the other people who show up.[6] We were not disappointed. The fellow in the top photograph had an awesome two-color mohawk, only surpassed by the two-color mohawk of his son (lower left corner of the photograph). The fellow in the bottom photograph had exactly the kind of teeth we were expecting to see. After taking the picture, I felt a little guilty because I noticed that he was probably mentally retarded. But he seemed to be having a good time, so I'm glad that he got to attend. And the ponytails his dad (behind him) and his grandpa (in front of him) were sporting certainly belong in the picture.
Periodically throughout the evening the two beauty queen attendants ran around the stadium throwing out t-shirts. One of them had trouble getting the t-shirts past the fourth row, but the other had an arm—she could launch them almost to the top of the bleachers. We managed to catch two. One of them was for the towing/junkyard company, Tear-A-Part, which I kept. The other was for the "skullfish" team and had a beanie rolled up inside. Leann kept the beanie and we gave the t-shirt to Jordan. I could've caught two more but I decided not to be greedy.
A few times we were spared the nervous chatter of the announcer and were presented with between-heats entertainment, including motorcycle barrel racing and a lawnmower race.
Throughout the evening there were some pretty great hits. Unfortunately, the memory card on the camera filled up, so I can't show you some of the best hits of the night (cars pushed up on the barriers, cars going up on two wheels, exploding radiators, engine fires, wheels knocked off their axles, etc.).
Notes:
[1] See my post It's a Girl!
[2] This is the same Jordan that went fishing with us at Salem Pond, back in March (see here).
[3] For some reason the mayor couldn't bring herself to say that it was for "breast cancer awareness".
[4] You can actually see some videos about their car and how it fared at their YouTube channel (here).
[5] It almost looked like a VW Rabbit, but I seriously doubt that's what it was.
[6] In fact, on the bench in front of us was a guy I went to high school with, though I couldn't remember his name. We acknowledged each other and our shared past, but I don't think he remembered my name, either.
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