The cars’ trunks had been crushed like soda cans and fashioned into jagged, knifelike battering rams. As the vehicles strategically crashed into each other and kicked up dirt into the audiences’ eyes and mouths at the Wasatch County Events Complex, an unwitting passenger could be spotted strapped to one car’s trunk: Elmo from “Sesame Street.”

Even though he’d been rammed and had watched a car flip over only a stone’s throw away from him, Elmo walked away mostly unscathed. He’d sacrificed one hand and a bit of stuffing — and, undoubtedly, incurred shaken baby syndrome — but his four-man team, “Shift Happens,” had triumphed over the opposing team at the Wasatch County Demolition Derby on Friday. 

Driver Ryan Chivers explained that torturing stuffed animals during demolition derbies is a family tradition his dad started.

“The best ones are the 4-foot-tall ones like, say, a SpongeBob full of little packing peanuts. And then, a little hole will get into it, and it’ll just blow over the track, and it’ll be in everybody’s cars,” he said. “Kids love it.”

Chivers has been building his car since the beginning of June and spent about $50,000 on it, including the plushie. He’s been attending demolition derbies since he was younger than Elmo and competing since he was 15. For him, the appeal of the sport is simple.

“You have road rage, and you can take it out. There’s no consequences,” he said.

Chivers is from San Jose, California, and made the trek for the Wasatch County Demolition Derby because it’s “one of the more premier events in the United States.”

Organizer Brad Bowman agreed. The event has been going for about 55 years, but was nearly shut down in 2016 due to a lack of competitors. 

“We could only get, like, 15 cars,” Bowman said.

Since Bowman’s promotion company, Destructive Behavior, took over organizing in 2022, the competition — now a three-day event — has seen a massive resurgence. This year’s derby featured about 160 contestants from across the country.

“People that want to do it competitively, they want fair treatment,” Bowman said. 

Bowman said there are two reasons for the derby’s renewed popularity: the $200,000 total payout in prize money, which is funded by ticket sales and sponsorships, and the way the drivers are treated.

That’s why each competition class has a rulebook filled with as many as 20 pages of fine print. A technician inspects each car to ensure there’s no funny business. Bowman’s technicians come from all over the country to ensure there’s no favoritism among locals.

The arena, too, is high-quality, this year implementing cutting-edge rubber berms instead of concrete ones. They’re reinforced with “75 dump truck loads of dirt,” Bowman explained.

“We’re doing this hoping that the concrete will not explode and shoot debris into the bleachers,” he said. “We hope that it makes it safer for the drivers and the fans.”

It was clear from watching the competition that safety was the top priority. If a bumper fell off or tire came loose, siren lights would flash and the announcer would tell the drivers to stop while the debris was dragged off the track.

That’s not to say it wasn’t dangerous. In the youth competitions Friday night, one car caught fire and another flipped. But as soon as the teenage drivers got out of their cars, they were pumping their fists in the air, working the crowd. 

Another tense moment came during the advanced youth competition, when a car bumper flew through the rear side window of Heber City 15-year-old Cache Jacobsen’s car, narrowly missing his helmeted head. 

“I didn’t even know it went through,” Jacobsen said. “(The safety technician) goes, ‘Don’t move. … That bumper just barely missed your head.’ I look back, and there’s a bumper right there.”

What, instead of the bumper, went through Jacobsen’s head at that moment?

“Dang!” he exclaimed. 

But as soon as the bumper was dislodged, Jacobsen was pedal to the metal. Even though he lost one of his back tires, he ended up in a three-way tie for fourth place.

Bowman said, “These guys, I’m telling you, will take cars whose bumpers will be 6 feet in the air, and they’ll be straight tomorrow, heading back onto the track for round two.”

Often, drivers will lend each other parts mere hours after demolishing their vehicles.

“There is bad blood, don’t get me wrong. But 90% of us will do anything for each other any given day,” Bowman said.

Driver Parker Lazenby, a Heber City native who now lives in Delta, recalled last year’s derby, when he substituted as a driver on his friend’s team and ended up head-to-head with another one of his buddies. 

“I laid some hits on him that I was kind of worried about, like, I should slow down a little bit. But at the end of the day, you give hugs and high-fives. It’s a cool sport. So much sportsmanship for that much violence,” he said. “I think that comes with how dangerous this actually is. There’s a level of respect that all of us drivers have for each other.”

Lazenby has been competing since he was 16. Over a decade later, he’s glad no other hobby has caught his fancy. He doesn’t have the time or money to spend on anything but his derby cars. 

Lazenby’s 2011 Ford Crown Victoria, worth about $20,000 after modifications, has a bumper “you could probably weld on the front of a dump truck and run into pretty much anything.”

“I think the dump truck would probably be more abused by the time you assess the accident,” Lazenby said.

Even after adding about “4,000 pounds” of parts and metal to his car, Lazenby’s favorite part is the engine.

“You need to be able to ram into a bunch of people, get it smoking hot and have it still scream,” he said.

What Lazenby loves even more than the blood, sweat and tears he’s put into his car is the fact that all that work pales in comparison to the whims of Lady Luck.

“You can have a guy that can have the best built car there, and that guy has no control over how the night goes,” he said. “There’s so many underdog things that happen in derby, whether it’s a first-time driver going out there and getting lucky against a bunch of veterans, or one guy who’s outnumbered by five and still finds a way to dismantle those guys’ cars and get them in bad positions.”

This year’s underdog was 15-year-old Corbin Anderson from Heber City, who won first place in the beginner youth competition. 

It was his second time ever competing in a demolition derby. Last year, Jacobsen lent him a spare car that got knocked out seconds into the competition. But in preparation for this year, Corbin spent hours toiling away on his very own car, assisted by Jacobsen and his derby-loving family.

“Last time, I only had two or three days to get my car ready and mentally prepared,” Corbin said. “This time, I was more prepared, ready mentally, to go crash cars.”

His strategy was making hits that he could get out of unscathed. He aimed mainly for tires or passenger doors. Watch out for him when he gets his driver’s license next year. 

Corbin’s mom, Nicole, said her son has learned teamwork, perseverance and mechanical know-how through competing.

“I am actually really surprised by how much he knows,” she said. “He’s taken a welding class at the high school, and he’s getting pretty good. I think it will help him in a future career.”

For placing first in the beginner youth competition, Corbin won $3,000. Some will go in his savings account, and some will go toward another derby car. After experiencing the high of going from last to first place in only a year, Corbin is hooked.

There are worse things a teenager could get hooked on, Bowman joked. 

“I always tell people one or two things,” he said. “It’s cheaper than drugs … (and) everybody’s got a hobby.”

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Heber City native Spencer Jacobsen has experienced it all while driving in the Wasatch County Demolition Derby. He’s bailed out of a burning vehicle, been hit so hard he’s heard bells ringing and, after turning a corner too fast, rolled his car a complete 360 degrees and just kept on driving.

Spencer has been competing since he was 17. Attending the derby with his dad and two older brothers was a childhood tradition. His brothers also competed but have since grown out of it.

“They got smart and quit. I’m going on 23 years,” Spencer said.

Spencer is carrying on the family tradition by teaching his son and nephews, aged 13 to 16, how to build cars to wreck in the derby. The Jacobsens will be competing in the youth categories during the 49th annual event taking place July 23-25.

The boys have all competed in the derby at least once before. It will be the fourth derby for Spencer’s 16-year-old nephew, Alex Jacobsen.

Alex will drive a car he initially bought on KSL Classifieds for $300. During five months of working on it in Spencer’s garage, he’s added about $900 worth of parts while stripping the interior.

“We take out everything, plastic, foam, flammable, glass, anything that could hurt you. And then, you put in a roll cage for protection,” Alex explained. “Then, you put an intake on it so that it works better and doesn’t break. You add bumpers, and you get skid steer tires for the back for extra grip and then weld the doors with little plates.”

Cars are regulated by a 20-page rulebook and carefully inspected before the competition, explained derby organizer Brad Bowman. As for the driving, there are almost no rules, except that hitting a driver’s door is strictly off-limits.

The goal is to be the last car standing, but Alex has a much different objective this year. He wants to be crowned the most aggressive driver, or the MAD Dog. 

“We just put the pedal to the metal and go hit who’s in front of us,” he said.

What keeps Alex competing is the adrenaline, the deafening roars of engines and pure, unadulterated destruction. Demolition derbies, he said, are an excellent way to “get rage out.”

There are two youth categories, one for drivers aged 12 to 15 and another for drivers aged 16 to 17. 

Across the eight categories, winners will take home a combined $200,000 generated from sponsors and ticket sales. But the youth competitions are especially fun to watch because most of the kids are in it for the chaos, not the money, Spencer said.

There was no youth category when Spencer was growing up. Bowman said it was added in recent years because the sport is “dying” among younger generations. In fact, the Wasatch County Demolition Derby was almost cancelled in 2016 due to lack of competitors. 

“Young kids just don’t work on cars anymore,” he said. “If we don’t get the kids involved at a young age, they most likely won’t get involved at all.”

Teaching kids to work on cars is an excellent way to instill a “mechanical mindset,” Spencer said. 

“Last year, I put so much more work into the cars than I have this year because they’ve become more self-sufficient,” he said. “Once you learn these little skills of being able to figure things out and look at it and make things work from guesswork, little by little, it becomes second nature.”

Cache Jacobsen, Alex’s 14-year-old brother, is currently taking welding classes at Wasatch High School and hopes to open a car repair shop one day. He said he’s not in the demolition derby for the adrenaline, but the friendships forged while working on cars in Spencer’s garage.

“They don’t even realize how nice they have it having the shop here,” Spencer said. “They’ve got tire air compressors, welders, a frame bender, all these things. Most people are out there in the sun under a lean-to, baking.”

That’s not to say the boys haven’t been feeling the summer heat. The six of them emptied a fridge full of several 24-packs of Gatorade, Bodyarmor and soda in a day. 

While their parents have helped keep the fridge stocked, the boys have been ravenous. On the day of the competition, however, they usually don’t eat anything at all due to nerves. 

Spencer said that feeling never goes away. 

“Every time my wife is driving, I’m more scared than she is, probably. And it’s not that I’m scared she’s going to get hurt. It’s just the nerves. You want them to succeed,” he said.

But for now, the boys “all talk the big talk,” Spencer said. A few of them have spray-painted messages on their bumpers like, “Drive it like I stole it.”

While the car in question was legally obtained, the boys have had one run-in with the law. Namely, Cache took his car for a test drive in the neighborhood and was instantly caught by a cop.

Demolition derby cars are not street legal, and Cache does not have a driver’s license. Making matters worse, the cop happened to be his cousin.

“He wasn’t mad, but he wasn’t happy,” Cache said, eliciting laughter from his friends.

But Cache’s little incident pales in comparison to the time his uncle Spencer burned down his parents’ barn 13 years ago. 

“We were working on a car. My parents were on vacation. The car caught on fire, and we burned everything,” he said. “They start getting phone calls from the neighbors saying, ‘How can we help?’ And my dad was like, ‘What do you mean?’ They’re like, ‘Your barn’s on fire!’ Let’s just say they started calling me. I screened them.”

After the fire claimed both the barn and his car, Spencer swore off the demolition derby. But fellow competitors weren’t going to let him quit so easily. Bowman rallied derby drivers from across Utah to purchase Spencer a new trailer, car and parts.

“When I was done, caught myself selling out and quitting, Brad and the whole community picked me up and pushed me along,” Spencer said. “I don’t know if you’d call that a brotherhood, but it is.”

The Wasatch County Demolition Derby takes place 7 to 10 p.m. July 23-25, at the Wasatch County Event Complex. Purchase tickets and learn more at tinyurl.com/bdzxvjdy.

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The town of Kamas held their annual Fiesta Days festivities at the rodeo arena over the weekend. Attendees were treated to a rodeo, demolition derby and more. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to full gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-Kamas-Fiesta-Days-Rodeo-and-Demo-Derby/

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The Commemorative Air Force (CAF) hosted an Air & Car show at hangar 38-D at the Heber City airport for locals and visitors to take an inside look at some classic cars and vintage planes Saturday, August 6, 2016. The event, which lasted throughout the morning and into the afternoon, was followed by a 50s-themed dance at the hangar. It featured swing-dance lessons, live music from All Star Big Band and food for guests to enjoy. (Photos by Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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