Monroe County Fair Demolition Derby has a new format for 50th annual event

IDA – The Monroe County Demolition Derby has been a family affair for Mark Cuykendall since he can remember.

The 23-year-old four-time Derby feature winner has been attending the Derby since he was a child and competing against his father in the derby dirt for the decade. In the first Derby he could participate in as a driver, in 2014, the feature came down to a duel between himself and his dad, James.

“I ended up beating him out,” Cuykendall said. “That was my first one.”

This year’s Demolition Derby has a slightly different feel for Mark. That’s because when he starts looking around for cars to smash into, his father won’t be in a competing car.

“He had surgery a couple of days ago, so he won’t be racing,” Cuykendall said last week. “It will be different. I wouldn’t say less fun. It will be totally different without him out there.”

Cuykendall put the finishing touches on his car, a 2000 Crown Victoria, last week as he prepares for the Monroe County show, which is at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the fairgrounds. Once again, the grandstands are expected to be packed when the cars – sorted into three classes this year – start bumping and banging into each other in hopes of taking home $75 for winning a heat race or $1,750 for a feature win.

This year’s Demolition Derby marks the 50th anniversary for the event, which was started by Dundee’s Howard Williams and ARCA founder John Marcum.

“John and Howard thought the concept of crashing cars would attract a crowd and it turns out they were right,” said Ryan Williams, Howard’s grandson and one of the Derby’s annual organizers now.

The Derby has been a major attraction at the Monroe County Fair for decades, drawing large crowds for what used to be multiple shows in one night. That is changing this year, however, with only one “show” on the docket. That one show, however, includes heat races and features for two different classes of cars.

Essentially, everything has been put into one show rather than finishing one show, clearing the grandstands, and starting another. Ryan Williams said that in some years it has been difficult to finish the first show early enough to start the late show at a reasonable hour. This year, there will be no need to clear the grandstands and start over.

The two classes this year are Semi-Stock, which has grown significantly in the past several years, and Modified Class, which has seen a drop in car counts.

“We didn’t want to remove the modified class but wanted to allow ample time for the spectators to enjoy the semi stock class event,” Williams said. “Also considering the time needed to empty and clean the grandstands, we decided that a one ticket event starting at 7 p.m. could solve the problem.

“While there is only one event this year, the event show remains the same but with only having to purchase one ticket.”

Cuykendall competes in the semi-stockclass. He said the cars have changed over the years.

“The cars are safer and harder to beat up on,” he said. “Back in the day you could probably just hit the car wherever you want. Now if you hit a car in the door as hard as you can, you will probably hurt your car more than anything. Now you pick on a tire or something and go at that. Cars can’t run if they don’t have tires.”

Cuykendall’s strategy varies from race to race, but he likes to get a feel for the other cars before charging to the finish. One thing for sure, there’s no hiding.

“At Monroe you cannot hide whatsoever,” he said. “You can try to, but you have a lot of intense drivers out there who are going wide open.”

Just like Marcum and Williams hoped.

50TH MONROE COUNTY FAIR DEMOLITION DERBY

Where: Monroe County Fair Grandstand

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday

Price: $10 North & South Wings / $15 Covered Grandstand

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Monroe County Fair Demolition Derby has a new format for 50th annual event