Action & adrenaline

BROWNSTOWN — Matt Weston and his father, Ray Weston, of Vallonia have made it a family affair when it comes to competing in demolition derbies.

Matt was one of three racing in the mini stock car division, while Ray was one of 10 in the full stock division on Tuesday night at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Brownstown during this year’s county fair.

Last year, they were competing against each other in the full stock division.

“He outdone me last year,” Ray said of his son, as Matt finished fifth and Ray sixth.

This year was all about seeing what they could do in separate divisions, and in the end, Matt was victorious in the mini cars and Ray unfortunately didn’t last long in the full stocks and finished 10th.

“It’s something to do on a Tuesday night at the fair,” Ray said before the derby began. “(Matt) basically got me going back into this a couple years ago and said, ‘Dad, I think we ought to build a derby car,’ because we’ve got a lot of cars at home and they’re not doing anything. We scrounged around and put this one together, and then the neighbor boy gave him a car last year and we got it going, so here we are.”

It was Ray’s fifth year doing the derby in Brownstown, but he said he has done around 12 derbies in his lifetime. Matt, on the other hand, is in his second year doing derbies, but he has been racing go-carts since age 10 and he’s now racing Pure Stocks and is looking to get into Late Models.

“This is just more to have fun,” Matt said of the derby, while the Pure Stock racing “is more competitive.”

“I just came back for the friends up in the grandstand,” Matt added. “It’s a fun time, plus a little extra money here and there. It’s pretty worth it if you get paid right.”

Matt said it didn’t take much to get his car ready for the derby.

“I just had to strip it out, and that was about a couple days,” he said. “Other than that, it didn’t take too long.”

Ray said it’s just fun “getting old junk cars and knocking the windows out of them and having a little fun.”

“It’s work right off the bat, but you might get two or three runs out of (the car) if you just kind of use your head and stay out of trouble (on the track),” Ray said.

Aside from Matt winning the mini stock car division, Larry Case of Scottsburg won in trucks, Troy Keith of Austin won in modified and David Thomas of Columbus won in full stock.

Also participating in the derby was Ron Stevens of Vallonia. He’s participated for 15 years, and he said it’s the adrenaline that keeps him coming back to the track.

“It gets your adrenaline pumping to go out there,” he said, “and hopefully somebody hits you as hard as you hit them, that way the guys can go at it for a little bit.”

Stevens competed in the modified division, and he finished sixth after a small fire broke out underneath the hood.

He said he used to just do the stock class, finishing first in 2007, but he was going through cars too fast.

“Then you go to modified so that way you can keep welding on them as they tear up,” Stevens said. “If you build a decent car, you’ve probably got a good 60, 80 hours (of work) in one from the start.”

The car he was in on Tuesday was donated.

“I pulled the motor out and reworked the motor a little bit, did some different stuff to it,” Stevens said. “You go out there and just see what you can tear up with what you’ve built.”

Stevens said the start of the derby is the best part.

“The first five minutes, it’s a pretty good blast,” he said, “and then the last of it, you’re just hoping you make it through to the end. You don’t start thinking until your car’s about done with.”

Before the derby began, Karen Matern of Hope was watching as her husband, Casey Matern, worked with some other guys to get ready to race in the full stock division.

Casey has been competing in derbies or helped his cousins prepare their derby cars for 20 years.

“It’s just been a hobby of his for years,” Karen said of Casey. “I usually help him as far as getting it ready and getting parts for him and stuff.”

Casey said he pulled a Cadillac out of the woods about a month and a half ago and began working to get it ready for the derby.

“It’s been ran before,” he said, but he had to get water out of it and clean up the motor. “I just got it going about three days ago.”

He estimated he had put in about 160 hours working to get it derby-ready.

Besides competing in demolition derbies, Casey also has been involved with autocross.

“You can crash into cars and spin them out and just take position, and you can crash them on the ramps and spin them out in the air,” Casey said of autocross. “Hitting is encouraged.”

The hitting aspect of autocross is similar to what’s done in demolition derbies, Casey said, except “you get a lot more use out of your car. Instead of going to a derby and your car all smashed up, you can do it over and over and over before your car actually gets trashed.”

He said he typically does just one derby a year, and like Stevens, Casey said it’s an adrenaline rush.

“It’s like road rage and you don’t get in trouble for it,” Casey said. “I like running (at Brownstown) because you don’t get a lot of people who want to team up on you, where some of the other places you go, you’ve got a lot of people that want to gang-bang and get three cars on one to take you out.”

Last year, Casey won the open class, and this year, he placed fourth in the full stocks. But it’s not all about placing. It’s about having fun and putting on a good show for the crowd.

“If there’s kids that are doing it or watching in the stands,” Casey said, “it might be a little more work than they might think, but it is a blast.”

Results

Demolition Derby
Jackson County Fairgrounds, Brownstown
Trucks: 1-Larry Case, 2-Troy Keith, 3-P.J. Mull, 4-Vern Albertson
Mini Stock: 1-Matt Weston, 2-Ryan Woods, 3-Bobby Woods
Modified: 1-Troy Keith, 2-Brandon White, 3-Aaron Bowman, 4-Damenn Madden, 5-Dustin Wiggins, 6-Ron Stevens, 7-Chris Marcum, 8-Shilow Hurt
Full Stock: 1-David Thomas, 2-Nathan Love, 3-Ed Childers, 4-Casey Matern, 5-Donald Marcum, 6-Kaleb Bunch, 7-Carl Boling, 8-Troy Keith, 9-Michael Cochrane, 10-Ray Weston