and your gas tank must be sheltered in the bulk tank used for wheat at the center of each combine. You can use up to 10 pieces of angle iron to reinforce your rig. You must remove any glass from the cab. You can't fill your tires with calcium or cement for better traction. You must be at least 18 years old and wear a helmet and a seat belt. Your combine must be at least 25 years old. You must pay a $50 entry fee.
The judges give each driver a red flag to fly while he's still in the derby. 'You just pull your flag and you're done,' says eighteen-year-old Jared Davis, driver of number 15, a McCormick 151. 'If your combine breaks down and it's not running anymore and you just can't move, they give you a certain amount of time and you just pull your flag and you're done.' On the back end of Davis's number 15 is a hand-drawn cartoon of a mouse flipping the bird. Number 15 is christened Mickie Mouse.
Davis says, 'These are just normal people out there for the fun of it. Just everyday working people. You get frustrations out, and you get to crash shit.'
Despite all the rules, you can still drink. Tipping back a can of Coors, Davis says, 'If you can walk, you can drive.'
In the grassy pit-crew area behind the rodeo arena, Mike Hardung is here for his third year, driving Mean Gang-Green, a 1973 John Deere 7700. 'My wife worries about me doing this, but I do a lot of crazy things,' Hardung says. 'Like race lawn mowers-riding lawn mowers. It's a pretty big deal. It's the Northwest Lawnmower Racing Association. We get up to forty miles an hour on riding lawn mowers.'
About combine demolition, sitting up that high and crashing a mountain of steel, Hardung says, 'It's chaotic. You don't know where you're at. You've really got to watch the weak spots, like the rear end of the combine and the tires. Then just go for the gusto and nail 'em. I'm a hitter.'
Pointing out the pulleys and belts that link the engine and the front axle, Hardung says, 'You have to protect your drive system so somebody can't get in there. If I tear off a belt I'm done.'
Some combines have hydrostatic drives, no gearshifts, he says. The harder you push the lever, the faster the rig goes. Other combines have manual transmissions. Those drivers swear by a clutch and gearshift. Some swear by not drinking before the event. Everyone has a different strategy.
'I go out there,' Hardung says. 'I scope it out. Attack the bad guys. Leave the littler guys alone-unless they attack me first.'
He says, 'You see tires pop out there. We hit so hard we tear the headers off the front of combines or the rear ends off. A couple years ago we tipped one over on its side.'
To repair the damage between heats, Hardung and his pit crew for Mean Gang-Green have brought along extra parts and supplies. Combine rear ends. Axles. Tires. Wheels. Welders. Cranes. Grinders. And beer.
'If farming gets any worse,' Hardung says, 'I'm going to bring my new combines over.'
When asked whom he's most worried about, Hardung points to a huge combine, painted blue with a dorsal fin rising out of the top. It has large white teeth and a stuffed dummy that's half eaten and hanging out of the mouth of the header. Painted on the front in big black letters is 'Josh.'
'I'll be watching out for Jaws,' Hardung says. 'He's big because he's a hillside combine, and he's got this extra iron inside. And cast wheels. He's tough.'
Josh Knodel is a rookie driver, eighteen years old. Since he was fourteen he and his friend Matt Miller have been bringing and repairing Jaws, a John Deere 6602 combine, and their fathers have driven it for them. Their first and second years, they took home the top prize. Last year they stopped dead with a blown front tire and only three combines left to beat.
'There's not much you can do to protect the tire itself,' Knodel says. 'The main thing I need to be careful of is not to get pinned, not to get where a combine locks me in from behind so somebody can then just hammer at my tires. I've got to try to stay out and move or else I'll get held up.'
He says, 'First, I'm going to try to get everybody in the dirt. I'll hit them in the back tires, try to knock their wheels out. You get down in the dirt like that and you're not nearly as fast or agile. You lose a lot of control. You lose a tire altogether and your whole rear end is just pushing in the dirt. Sometimes your rims even get ripped off and your whole ass end will be dragging in the dirt.
'I'm mainly excited,' Knodel says. 'I've been wanting to do this forever. Today's the day. But I've got butterflies. Last night it was tough to go to sleep.' He says, 'I can't remember missing a derby. It's derby time around our house. We've always come to town for the rodeo and the combine derby. This is a dream come true, definitely, being able to drive tonight. There's $300 if you win your heat. If you get second place in your heat, $200. Third place, you get $100. But if you win the whole derby, it's $1,000. There's definitely some prize money.
'There's no insurance,' Knodel adds. 'We don't sign anything, which is amazing. You'd think the Lions Club would have us sign something saying that if somebody gets hurt they're not liable, but I didn't sign anything. All of us out here, we're here to have fun. We realize we're at our own risk.'
The grandstands are filling up. A long string of cars and trucks is pulling into the gravel parking lot. A water truck is wetting down the dirt in the rodeo arena.
At the beginning of the derby, the combines enter the arena and park in two long rows. As they wait, the crowd stands. The Lind rodeo queen for the third year running, Bethany Thompson, wearing red-white-and-blue sequins and holding an American flag, gallops on her horse faster and faster around the assembled combines. As Thompson gains speed, her flag snapping in the wind, the combine drivers stand with their right hands over their hearts, and the three thousand onlookers recite the Pledge of Allegiance. People visiting here from the city get slapped or punched in the back and yelled at for not taking off their hats.
The derby consists of four heats: the first is for drivers who have competed here before, the second is for rookies, the third is another for experienced drivers, and the fourth begins with a consolation round for all the losing combines that can still run. After the fight, the winners from the first three heats enter the arena, and everyone still moving-winners and losers-fights to the death.
After the pledge, a judge reads a tribute written by driver Casey Neilson and the crew of combine number 9, a 1972 McCormick International 503 with an ambulance light bar spinning red and blue lights on top. Neilson's good-luck charm is the Afro wig he always wears while driving. People call him Afro Man. He calls his combine Rambulance.
Over the loudspeaker you hear: 'The crew of Odessa Trading Company would like to take a moment to thank the men and women of EMS and local volunteer fire departments for all their hard work and dedication. If it weren't for you, some of us would not be here.'
All but seven combines leave the arena, and the first heat begins.
Over the loudspeaker, a judge says, 'Lord, help us have a good show and a safe show tonight.'
Right off the bat, Mark Schoesler, in the Turtle, loses a rear tire. Mean Gang-Green and J&M Fabrication butt headers. The BC Machine, the Silver Bullet, and Beaver Patrol throw dirt in the air, chasing one another in a circle. The engines roar, and you breathe in the exhaust. Mean Gang-Green's rear tire gets popped. J&M Fabrication's rear tire gets popped, and the driver, Justin Miller, looks to be in trouble, stuck in one place and ducking down, disappearing into the engine compartment of his combine. The Silver Bullet is stopped dead and declared out by a judge, and driver Mike Longmeier drops his red flag. Beaver Patrol has a rear wheel completely torn off, then its rear axle, but it keeps going, dragging itself through the dirt with just its front wheels. Then Red Lightnin' crushes Beaver Patrol's rear end. The engine housing pops open on Mean Gang-Green and smoke pours out. Red Lightnin's engine catches fire. J&M Fabrication comes back to life, Miller reappearing in the driver's seat. Beaver Patrol drags along in the dirt. J&M rips the rear end off the Turtle. The beer keg falls off Mean Gang-Green. The rear axle rips off the Turtle. And Miller is stopped dead again. The judges wave the Turtle out, and Schoesler drops his red flag. J&M Fabrication is out, Beaver Patrol is out, and Mean Gang-Green is the winner.
In the pit the crew swarms J&M Fabrication, hammering and grinding metal. Welding sparks fly. Flat tires get changed. J&M's Miller, headed to the consolation round, says, 'I don't care who wins as long as we can hit as hard as we can for as long as we can.'
Describing the best way to hit, he says, 'I use the brakes. On these combines there's a brake for each side, so if you lock one of them up, you can spin around and get that one end of the header going. It'll be going five, six times as fast as the combine, and when you hit somebody right on the corner, it does a lot of damage to their
