Lightning strikes at derby

5,000 turn out for annual event

LIND — Mother Nature dumped heavy rains onto the ripped dirt, drenched the crowd of nearly 5,000 and transformed the final heat of Saturday's 19th Annual Combine Demolition Derby into a mud match marked by upset and revenge.

"The Silver Bullet" and "Nez Perce Lions Club" combines locked headers repeatedly with massive collisions in the final heat — while lightning, thunder and rain scattered the crowd all around — and the two John Deere monsters eventually rode to a shared victory.

During the final heat, the winners rumbled around the gnarled scraps and huge metal body parts of their competitors before judges declared the warfare a tie. Neither the drawn-out battle inside the muddy football-field-sized arena nor the weather from above showed any sign of crippling the two.

The massive destroyed carcasses of the losers sunk unmoving in the mud and were eventually towed out.

"Jaws," meanwhile, the hometown favorite and reigning champion, sat idle in the pit-crew area outside the arena. The powder blue champ won an initial heat, received limited damage, but did not return to compete in the finals.

For 21-year-old Travis Willson, driver of "The Silver Bullet" combine from St. John, the victory against "Jaws" and other local teams made for perfect revenge.

"Last year we came close to winning, but just couldn't quite cut it," Willson said afterwards. "I'm so psyched we beat the locals, I'm so psyched. I can't even think."

He's driven his 1980s John Deere 7700 in two previous combine derbies in Lind. The best strategy, he said, is to stay back and wait for the enemy to charge in and get tangled up. Then, Willson said, he hunts down the wounded and vulnerable as they try to escape the pile up, attacking their front tires and rear axles mercilessly.

"And then just hits, hard hits. Every hard hit you make, something else could break," Willson said. "Hydro could blow. Front tire could pop. Header could fall off. You just go out there, run your hardest and be smart about it."

Mike Jensen, driver of the 1972 John Deere 6602 "Nez Perce Lions Club" combine, said he couldn't have felt more at home in the rain and mud.

"I run in our derby all the time over in Nezperce, Idaho, and this will be our seventh year, so I'm not a rookie," Jensen said. "Basically, it turned out like what our derby is, it always rains or snows in our derby, so it was a lot of fun."

Jensen, 24, said there is no practice for a combine demolition derby. So, the key to winning, he said, is an experienced pit crew.

Willson and Jensen split $2,100 for their victory in the final heat.

Bill Loomis, the derby's founding father and member of the Lind Lions Club, which sponsors the event, said the derby was a success. It was the first muddy derby he could remember, he said.

"I think it was one of the biggest and best we've ever had," Loomis said, despite the rain. "It was just a good weekend all together for the Lions Club, and the crowd, too."

Across town, Slim's Bar and Grill cashed in on the foul weather, giving fans, which included some from Hong Kong, a warm and dry spot to sit and guzzle beer.

Skip Thompson, who has owned and operated the joint for 28 years, said the weekend of the famous derby always means steady business. And Thompson knows a little about fame, too.

"I had beers with (Steven) Spielberg, how's that," Thompson said.

In the late 1980s, Spielberg filmed a bar scene for his romantic movie, "Always," at Slim's.

The movie crew, however, didn't stir up much business, Thompson said. At least not compared to the combine demolition derby.