Farmers Day 2015: Demolition derby returns for 2015 Farmers Day

After a hiatus last year, the demolition derby is back.

The demolition derby will be held during Farmers Day at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Kimball County Fairgrounds.

According to Doug Lukassen and Mark Vowers, event coordinators, the derby last year was canceled due to the timing of the Oktoberfest derby the following weekend.

“The Ag Society and I felt we couldn’t compete with the Oktoberfest purse last year,” Vowers explained.

Vowers sent interested parties the rules, classes and other pertinent information and publicized the event throughout the summer, while members of the Ag Society lined up judges, ticket takers, tractors to remove non-operational vehicles and volunteers to work the arena.

“Basically the Ag Society planned everything hired me to promote, put together rules, answer questions if needed and inspect the cars,” Vowers said. “There is no pre-entry, so we don’t have exact numbers yet, but there have been quite a few calls.”

Fourteen drivers competed at the last derby held in Kimball. For a number of years there was no derby at all, according to Vowers, a life-long derby fan.

“Kimball had the derby back in 1976 at the high school, and that is basically when I started watching it from the back of my dad’s pickup,” Vowers said. “I built my own when I was about 15, I was too young to drive it. Back in the early ‘90s I got started here again. I ran cars for 15 years and then got back into judging for another 10.”

Lukassen said that Vowers was the driving force behind the return of derby this year, and that the Ag Society is sponsoring it as a fundraiser.

“It takes a lot of volunteers. We have the ambulance service and fire department volunteers to help the day of,” Lukassen said.

“We changed things up this year; we have three different classes so I am expecting quite a few more cars,” Vowers added.

For more information or to request rules and entry forms, contact Lukassen at 308-235-5027 or Vowers at 308-249-3192.