Demolition Derby kicks off Roundup with a bang

A driver makes the mud fly in a previous Demo Derby. This year’s event is Wednesday at the Moses Lake Roundup grounds.

by Rodney Hardwood & Staff Writer
| August 15, 2016 6:00 AM

MOSES LAKE — Even before Corey & Lange Flying Diamond Rodeo Stock bucking bull Bottle Rocket puts the fear of God into the best bull riders in the country. Before superstar bareback horse Trip Wire struts his stuff. The dirt track demons are going to show the 73rd Annual Moses Lake Rodeo fans a little something about competition on a horse of a different color.

The Moses Lake Demolition Derby will kick off a big weekend racing and rodeo action on Wednesday with a bang, quite literally a bang. The night will be one part dirt track racing, one part demolition derby.

Time trials begin at 6:30 p.m. and racing starts at 7:30 p.m. The demolition derby is scheduled to begin around 10:30 p.m.

This year will be something new on the derby side with a team format, instead of a every-man-for-himself free-for-all. It’s going to be team hunting, featuring 20 cars and 10 teams vying for the top spot.

“We’ve put together a unique thing with the team demo. There will two drivers, two cars which will be painted identically, but with different numbers. The object is to work together to better their position in the demo,” Moses Lake Roundup president Stan Cafferty said. “We’re excited about this. We changed the rules a little bit to let these guys build better cars so they’ll last a little longer and put on a better show. Right now we have 20 cars, which is three times the number we had in our demo last year.”

The team strategies are unlimited. Like tag-team wrestling, they can hunt down individual cars or team up on a certain team. Well-built cars with drivers that travel, competing in demolition derbies around the country, this ought to be good.

“The days of a guy dragging a car out from his backyard and going runnin’ at the demo are over,” Cafferty said. “These are experienced drivers. I don’t think any of them are first-timers, some have been doing it for 20 years. It’s not uncommon for these guys to have $3,000 or $4,000 in their cars. They’re good, they strategize well. So it should be really good show.”

On the racing side, the oval track around the arena is probably less than an eighth of a mile, so there’s going to be a whole lot of dirt slung with drivers in perpetual slide trying to gain the advantage.

Time trials begin at 6:30 p.m. The fastest four qualifiers move on to the four-lap trophy dash. From there, every car will run a heat race.

“Some cars have two drivers lined up for that car, so some cars will run two heats,” Cafferty said. “The heat races will consist of eight cars per race.”

They also have Powder Puff racing and ATVs as an added bonus for the race fans.