badmouth gets smashed

I think, at heart, I might be a redneck.

My parents owned a truck stop in rural Missouri when I was growing up. If they had kept the place, I figure I�d be typing this right now in NASCAR t-shirt with a pair of too-tight Wranglers and a belt buckle the size of an affordable import sedan while spitting Skoal� juice into a used STP oil treatment can and listening to Hank Williams records on the Victrola.

But my parents sold the place when I was nine and bought a car wash in the city. The only remnants of my hillbilly heritage are my fondness for chicken fried steak and The Dixie Chicks.

Oh yeah, and I like demolition derbies.

I just recently discovered my soft spot for derbies, when my friend Russ entered a car in the Antelope Valley County Fair. After attending, I can say with certainty:

There are few things finer in life than a V8-propelled steel bumper slicing through the fender of a �74 Nova like a hot knife through warm butter.

Russ and his brother Matt entered the derby with cars salvaged from their family business, The C.A.R. Shop in Lancaster, CA. Matt was driving a �78 Chevy Caprice Classic while Russ was in a �70 Ford LTD. Both cars were �second-run� vehicles; they had been in demolition derbies before. But slap some paint on them, straighten the frame and drop in a new engine, and voila! Good as new.

Since Russ was a personal friend, he got us �pit passes,� so we could see some behind the scenes action. More importantly, he agreed to allow us to turn his car into a Badmouth-sponsored experiment (see a lamb to the slaughter).

Russ was ready to rumble.

There were approximately 75 cars in the derby. They ran in three heats of 25. Russ and Matt were in the second heat. And they both made it fairly easily to the finals. Their cars were �impounded� so that they wouldn�t get extra time to repair their vehicles while the other heats were still going on.

Finally the last heat ran and the crews were allowed to start working on the cars.

The rear end of Russ�s LTD had been crushed to the point that it was rubbing against both rear tires. The rear driver�s side tire was flat as a result. The radiator also took a hit and needed to be replaced. And there was some problem with the linkage, I think. I�m only vaguely aware of what �the linkage� is, so don�t quote me on that.

Russ began cutting the metal that was rubbing against the driver�s side tire off the car with an acetylene torch while another part of the team replaced the radiator, and yet a third crew tried to straighten the frame on the passenger side with a sledgehammer. This caused a bit of humor when they almost knocked the car off the jack, nearly crushing Russ under a ton and a half of domestic steel. Ha-ha!

Finally Russ and Matt were ready to go, so they entered the arena for the finals. It was hard to keep track of them because they had painted the cars black and it was night. Russ was especially difficult to follow because his car lost its �death flag� after the first heat.

But as more and more cars stopped moving, we eventually realized that there were only four cars left, and Russ and Matt were still going strong. Russ dropped first. He was slammed from behind as he was lining up for a shot at another car. His bumper became hopelessly tangled with a �dead� car. He fried what little was left of his engine trying to get free.

Matt had also been hooked by another car�s bumper, but after working it back and forth a few times, he was able to pop free�re-entering the fray at a critical time.

Matt took out one of the remaining cars, and it was down to two. Then something strange happened. Another car that hadn�t moved in five or ten minutes re-entered the race, bumping the number back up to three. The rules clearly stated that if you stayed still for two minutes you were disqualified, but I guess no one was paying attention. The rules didn�t seem to be strictly enforced anyway.

The newcomer was quickly dispatched by Matt�s opponent. They were back down to two.

After circling each other warily for a while Matt made a move. He gunned it towards the other car and missed, and was slammed as a result. He limped back into the arena and was slammed again. This time the other driver wasn�t taking any chances, and he hammered the Caprice a few more times for good measure.

So Matt came in second and got $1000, and through a travesty of demolition justice, Russ was awarded fifth and a $250 prize. The cars were complete junk by this point, and next year the boys will have to start fresh, with new-old cars.

And Badmouth will be there, with a new pi�ata�filled with tomatoes, chorizo, dog food and hope.