Demo man

Oct. '81

'68 Olds 88 with a 455. I had the bright idea to enter a demolition derby. My first heat was the third of the night, so the track had dried out a lot. This meant excellent traction. I sqaured off across from a '67 Caddy. When the flag dropped I put the 455 to the mat and didn't let up. The Caddy had barely moved. When I hit him, the impact snapped my neck backward, flinging my glasses into the backseat area and bent the back of the car up so much that I could see out of the rear window.

When we built it I chained down the front of the hood. The hood hinges were messed up (the car had been rolled previously) so we used all-thread to bolt down the back of the hood. (visible in the picture) The all-thread didn't work. After a couple of hard hit to the front the all-thread pulled through the sheet metal. The chain in front held, so the hood ended up on the ground in front of the car, still chained to the car. So, when I tried to go forward the hood would dig in and stop me-that left me driving blindly, backward. I kept at it that way for a while, until I lost a transmission hose. Some "old pro" had advised me to cut a foot out of each metal transmission cooler line and replace it with rubber so they wouldn't kink shut in a hard front collision. That was all well and good until one blew off.

There was a mad scramble to get it up and runnig for the consolation race-my only other chance to make it into the feature. We cut the chain holding the hood and ran hoodless. I had to use the cutting torch to trim a rear wheelwell that was into a tire. It was then that I learned that it is near impossible to cut mud encrusted sheetmetal with a troch-I guess the mud sucks up too much heat. I reattached the transmission cooler line and double clamped them all. I put in every can of atf that I had brought but the car still wouldn't moved. The announcer called for all consolation race entries. In a panic I dumped in 3 quarts of 10w30 motor oil. On the "last call" I still wasn't moving so I put it on the mat and it finally shuddered to life-it must have been air locked or something.

I was a little more careful pounding on everyone this time. Eventually I lost reverse and in an effort to preserve my radiatior I start turning tight circles, clipping cars with my right rear qurater panel. This tactic was effective-I took out a couple of cars that way. I eventually got slammed into a dead car on the sidelines and got hung up. I felt like it was all or nothing at that point. I worked and worked trying to get loose and think I was close. I again had it on the mat, tires spinning like crazy. The motro was getting hot and all at once bang!-she blew. Oh, well I was a couple of places away from making it into the feature.

I can honestly say that I have not had the urge to ever again enter a demolition derby. Between the hits I took here and the hit the next December when my first car was totalled, my neck has never been the same.

Ah, but I wouldn't undo the experience or anything.

Oh! In the background you can see my 1st '74 Scout. I'll post anothe picture of it later...

ttfn,