Trint Hall's and Scott Rathbun's Car Makes It To The Feature at the Fair Demo Derby

Trint Hall and Scott Rathbun made it to the Feature A in the Lincoln County Fair Demolition Derby on Saturday.  Saturday morning, Scott and Trint stopped by the house so I could get some pictures of the car before it was "altered" by Saturday nights events.  They also gave me some insight on how a car was prepared for a demolition derby.

There is a great deal of detail that goes into building a derby car.  Scott and Trint explained that there are certain rules to follow when building a derby car.  Those rules differ by promoter and this promoter was pretty consistent with his rules from year to year.  You cannot build any reinforcement into the car, but you can help control how the car crunches.  It is important that the trunk of the car bends upwards.  The transmission needs a special cooling unit as they endure much more stress in derby use than they would as a highway driver.  Even details such as tire stem protectors are important.

Trint wanted me to take this picture so everyone knew he was driving.












The following pictures are from the derby.  I managed to get the car's first hit.

The first heat.

The consolation heat and then the Feature A.

The "after" pictures weren't so pretty.

 Driver's door hits are illegal and highly frowned upon.  The only shadow cast over the event was the driver of car 55 at the derby.  They were sure that car 55 did this and was quite active in doing it to other drivers as well.  The crowd was so worked up over it that chants of "DQ 55!" (disqualify 55) were heard throughout the stands.  However, car 55 went on to get the third place prize to the dismay of many in the audience.

Wyatt Wallace examines the damage to the car on Sunday morning.

From the picture of the compacted trunk above you can imagine the effect of crunched metal on the rear tires.  This was the tire from the driver's side rear.  The metal was so crunched that it wore through the outer tire and started on the inner tire.  All tires on the car were double lined.  There was a tire on the outside, a tire inside of that tire, and a tube inside the second tire.




Scott and Trint will spend the next couple of weeks working to repair the car.  They plan to enter at least one more derby.