Sandpoint, ID

The Sunday following the annual Lost in the 50’s celebration concludes with a demolition derby. I have attended quite a few demolition derbies during the fall Bonner County Fair, but had yet to make it to the spring derby. I was pretty excited about the spring derby and invited a friend, who had never been to a derby before to go with me. I pre-purchased our tickets on the Friday before the event at the Panhandle State Bank Ponderay branch for $10 each. After my experience with the fall derbies I made sure that we got there early as seating and parking was always hard to find.
As we pulled up to the grass parking lot at the Bonner County Fairgrounds I found plenty of parking and we walked right in to the arena, finding an awesome seat. The crowd was much smaller than the fall derbies, which I believed was due to a lack of advertising for this derby. We arrived 15 minutes early, which unfortunately turned out to a little over an hour wait, with the derby starting late as there was confusion by the staff as to when the derby started.

Once the derby started, eight cars rolled out into the log lined arena, these cars were deemed by the derby officials as having the best paint schemes in the field of the cars. The announcer had the crowd cheer for which car they thought had the best scheme and the car was awarded once the cheers were tallied. Sometimes public events can surprise you with the unexpected. During the best in show display, a young pit member pulled out a huge sign and asked his sweetheart to marry him, the daughter of one of the drivers. It made me realize that lots of these drivers had family and friends who helped them out to achieve their derby dreams.

After the best in show was awarded the field retreated to the pits and we awaited the start of the first heat. There were three heats of eight cars each. The top three cars in each heat, who were left running at the end of the timed heat moved on to the next level of competition. After the three heats were finished the teams who did not move on to the final event were allowed 15 minutes to work on their cars and compete in the “hard luck” competition, a last chance for competitors to make it to the final event. As the derby moved on the driving certainly got more aggressive. There were two cars that caught on fire, luckily the fire department was there to extinguish the flames. One hard hit to the car driven by the only female competitor, stopped the competition for a few minutes while she had to be helped out of the car by paramedics. We were not sure of the severity of her injury, however, I did hear her yell to her family “someone get my car”. Each heat had a chance to win extra money, with an orange stick stuck in the middle of the arena, the first car who hit the stick won $50 per heat, or $100 in the final event. The top prize was $2000 to the last car running in the final event. The derby finished and the trophies were given to the top finishers along with their cash prizes.

Tickets for the derby can be purchased for $10 for adults and $5 for children at the ticket office located outside the rodeo arena, where the derby is held, near the horse barn at the Bonner Country Fairgrounds. You can also pre-buy tickets from local businesses around town, to find these locations you can call the Bonner County Fairgrounds at 208-263-8414. To get to the derby take US hwy 95 to Schweitzer Cut-Off Road, turning left at the light (Wal-Mart will be on your right). Turn right at the T intersection on N. Boyer and take the next immediate left. Parking is found for free on the grass lawn near the horse barn.