Why high school students will see all their hard work destroyed at county fair

When high school students talk of crushing their rivals in competition, the language usually is figurative.

Not this Tuesday, though. Students from Modesto and Turlock schools have turned old cars into lean, mean wrecking machines that will be driven by alums during Destruction Derby II at the Stanislaus County Fair.

“We want the younger generation involved with the derby in order to keep our traditions going for the next few years,” said Buster Lucas, the Turlock Lions Club’s derby chief. “Putting together such a competition will generate interest from the younger demographic for future events.”

Seven high schools will have cars in the derby: Modesto, Davis, Downey, Beyer, Johansen, Turlock and Pitman. Students from the five Modesto campuses worked together on all their cars in the Mo High auto shop under the guidance of teacher Kent Hammons.

“Every step was done on every car before we went on to next step,” he said of the cooperative effort.

The Turlock Lions Club got the cars from tow companies and provided them to the students, Hammons said.

“One car had been abandoned on a roadside for who knows how many months,” he said, and took a lot of work by students to get running. All the other cars were operational.

Getting them derby-ready, though, took several months. All the upholstery was removed because it’s flammable, Hammons said. Structural steel was added to protect the drivers.

“The fuel tank has to be in (the passenger compartment) with the driver, which doesn’t sound very good,” he said, “but everything back where the original gas tank was gets all crushed up.”

Ariana Sanchez Carpenter, who’ll be a Davis High senior later this summer, was an auto-class newbie when she started working on the derby cars. She learned a lot of good basics, like how to use mechanics tools, bleed brakes and change oil. Sanchez Carpenter also learned to cut steel and weld.

Downey senior David Sanchez, also a first-year auto student, said he, too, learned by stripping down and reinforcing the cars. He said he’s looking forward to working on the pit crew at the derby — fixing flats, pulling out dents that are keeping a car from moving, doing whatever it takes to stay in the running.

Many months back, when the idea of having high-schoolers in the derby was floated at a county fair committee meeting, the idea was that maybe principals or other administrators or teachers might drive the cars. But school districts said liability made that a nonstarter.

Instead, graduates of the participating schools will drive for their alma maters. “We’re just going out there and smashing away,” Davis driver Keith Jaynes, a 2011 grad, said enthusiastically.

It’s pretty simple, but there’s a bit more to it.

“There’s no hitting in the driver’s door, to make sure the driver doesn’t get hurt,” Lucas said. “You always want to hit with the back of the car, to save the radiator and the front of the motor.”

All the cars are automatic transmission, Hammons said, but with those electronics stripped out, they can’t shift, so they top out at about 15 mph.

And the winner isn’t last car moving, Lucas said. There’s a scoring system in which judges will award points for hits.

The high school competition will be the second heat of Tuesday’s derby, which starts at 6:30 p.m. in the FoodMaxx Arena. Reserved seats are $12, general bleacher seating $10.

“The Destruction Derby events are a must at the fair,” fair spokeswoman Adrenna Alkhas said in a news release. “They truly rally up the crowd and get everyone going. With the high school heat addition, it will bring a nostalgic high school rivalry back.”

This story was originally published July 15, 2018 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Why high school students will see all their hard work destroyed at county fair."