my son “BEST. DAY. EVER” {our first demo derby}

In light of my recent Okie Noodling post, Chris said I might want to think twice before posting this. I consider myself a cultured kind of girl. I think too many people call themselves “cultured” but really they are only referring to a certain kind of culture. I love that last weekend I was at a wedding with Percy Sledge (….who wrote & sang When A Man Loves a Woman…more on that tomorrow) and this weekend I was at my first demolition derby. It was awesome. My 5 year old loves the quote from Tangled, “Best Day Ever!!!”. It got used a lot after the derby.

A demolition derby is basically a race where the drivers intentionally try to demolish the other cars. The last car that is left operational is the victor.

When the first race started, the boys were in utter awe and amazement. I’m pretty sure they couldn’t believe the awesomeness happening in front of them.

When we loaded the car to go, I was in a funk. It had been a long week of feeling the stress of taking on too many commitments and not enough time to accomplish it all. Had we gone to a ballet, I would have still left in a funk. A demo derby, on the other hand, was exactly what I needed. There was something about all that aggressive metal crashing around that was so refreshing for my stressed out self.

After each race, tow trucks and tractors came to pull out the ‘losing’ cars.

A few races in, we started picking “our” car to root for….let me tell you, there are passionate fans at Demo Derbys. You can’t help but start cheering and yelling….

Our friend Mark races…we’ve been wanting to come watch him for a long time. He made it to the final race and lasted almost to the end.

3 best parts of the Derby (aside from it being “The Best Day Ever”):

1. Watching Mark

2. The final battles between the last two cars in each race….so much fun to watch. Maybe it was my stress finding enjoyment in all that crashing about, but it was fun!

3. The guy whose car caught on fire.

*********

So a race was about to start and flames started coming out of this guy’s car. He jumped through the front window and ran, firemen put it the flames out…and then he jumps back in, just in time for the race.

On the way home, Chris and were chatting…

(me) I keep thinking about the guy whose car caught on fire. You know, there was a element of stupidity on his part for getting back into that car.

Yep.

On the other hand, you have to respect a guy that will take a risk and make a decision that others find stupid when it means doing something he loves. He knew that for himself, the joy of racing that car outweighed the risk involved. He calculated the risk, but ultimately chose to do what he loves. You have to respect someone like that.

You want to race in a demo derby now, don’t you?

Yeah.

(laughs)

My car would look awesome too. You know I could totally do it. No one would take me seriously. I would use my quiet, competitive nature to thrash them all. I could do it.