Wreck it!

The contestants gather at county fairgrounds and other dirt arenas to ram each other’s cars to pieces. Demolition derby is a spectacle made of bravado and ball caps, spray-painted junkers and the nerve to collide on purpose.

Dumb thing to do? Maybe so, but not according to the notably urbane writer Tom Wolfe, who observed:

“The demolition derby is, pure and simple, a form of gladiatorial combat for our times.”

In this view, the ancient Roman arena is replaced by the White County - or some other - fairgrounds arena and the sword gives way to a steering wheel. But the hard clash of metal on metal is the same idea, and the chance of blood is a real possibility.

The derby has been around in one form or another ever since cars began to go fast enough to crash. The great American love affair with the automobile includes that some relationships are destructive.

In the Depression years, especially, people got a bang out of seeing this thing that only rich people could have - the car - beaten to a smoking heap.

Not much is written about demolition derbies. Pictures say it better. But the Journal of Social History takes note of Arkansas’ contribution to the spectacle.

“Jimmy Lynch’s Death Dodgers from Arkansas” were among the most prominent teams of early-day stunt drivers, according to Itai Vardi’s article, “Auto Thrill Shows and Destruction Derbies, 1922-1965.” Lynch and his drivers performed a “two-hour circus of death.” He struck some of the first deals to endorse specific makes of cars and tires.

Meantime, other ol’ boys with no such fame or special training proved willing to ram each other’s cars to the last crate still rolling, and the true derby was born.

Here, Benjamin Krain’s photos show the crunched and crumpled, overturned and piled-up results of thunder-and-thud derbies at Searcy and Des Arc.

On the plus side for drivers: No trouble parking.

Style, Pages 27 on 10/22/2013