Volunteers bring demolition derby to life

After cancelling last year due to COVID-19, the Del Norte County Fair drew in huge crowds over the weekend. Some of the largest crowds came out for the Demolition Derby, Tuff Truck and pit bike races on Sunday.

Tristan Smith, owner of Tallan’s Tires, has been helping to put on the auto events at the fair with his two brothers for the past seven years. Despite breaking an axle shaft during his lap, Smith also won this year’s Tuff Truck race with a time of 31 seconds. Nevertheless, Smith said he was more excited about how quickly a team of volunteers was able to put together the track at the rodeo arena.

“A lot of people don’t know, we built this track right after the rodeo on Saturday. So, this track was built in less than one day,” said Smith. “It’s great to see the crowd, we just put it on for the spectators to have a show and everyone else has a blast doing it.”

Other volunteers who helped out with auto events this year included Jager Stone, Jason Barholomew and Darren McCulloch.