NORTHAMPTON – The custom of having demolition derbies with school buses at the Three County Fair may not be an old one, but it certainly is popular.
“I don’t think we’ve had a school bus derby in three years that hasn’t sold out,” said Three County Fair General Manager James Przypek.
Three years is the amount of time that the attraction has been at the fair and, as far as as Przypek is aware, it is the only fair in New England that offers the spectacle.
Sure enough, the grandstand of the Three County Fairgrounds was packed for Monday’s school bus demolition derby, with additional spectators being seated in folding chairs on the ground.
“How many of you came out to see school buses getting wrecked?” said the announcer over the PA system, prior to Monday’s Derby.
The Derby involved eight different school buses, representing both elementary schools and non-school organizations. On Saturday, there was another school bus derby, consisting of buses representing local high schools.
The derbies at the fair are put on by Skyfire Productions.
On Monday, the buses lined up into two rows, before backing up toward each other and colliding with a resounding crash.
The rules of the bout were simple: Buses had to hit each other by backing into one another, and could only hit each other’s rear section, either end to end or as a broadside.
To spice things up, a smaller bus was unleashed for a portion of the bout and proceeded to slam into multiple different buses.
The derby sometimes involved multiple buses piling into each other, while other times they circled around the battleground. The sturdiness of the vehicles meant that for the first half hour, nearly all of the buses were still running and in the fight. However, as the bout went on, the back ends of the buses began to look like crumpled tin cans. Pieces of bus also started to litter the arena, and soon enough buses were taken out of commission.
One of the more aggressive buses was the bus representing Leeds Elementary School. After it appeared to have been knocked out, it ended up coming back to life. Then, after some more fighting, it looked to have been knocked out of commission a second time.
The fighting continued, until only the Williamsburg, Westhampton and Look Park buses were in the fight. And then, Leeds came back to life. Leeds, however, looked to have been knocked out of commission again, but for some reason, the bus refused to die, roaring back to a fourth resurrection, with the crowd going wild and the bus honking in appreciation.
Unfortunately for Leeds fans, the fourth resurrection would be its last, despite the best efforts of the driver to bring it back for a final time.
In the end, Williamsburg was crowned the champion, with Look Park finishing second and Westhampton coming in third. In Saturday’s bout, Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School finished on top, with Hampshire Regional High School coming in second and Northampton High School come in third.
The Bus representing Center/Pepin Elementary School in Easthampton won best appearance.
Becky Darling, of Williamsburg, came with her son Griffin, 8, and daughter Gretta, 5, to see the derby.
“We’re super excited,” said Becky, on seeing the Williamsburg bus win.
She also noted that Williamsburg won the contest two years ago.
“My school really is like awesome,” said Griffin.
Chris McNeil, of Enfield, Connecticut, saw the event for the first time, alongside his family.
“It was definitely a blast,” he said. “I’ll be back again.”
He said that his favorite part of the event was seeing the Leeds bus come back from the dead several times, and the small bus coming in.
Dan Friedman, of Amherst, came out to the show with his family.
“We love it,” he said, noting that they’d seen it the year before.
Indeed, he said that his children sometimes watch footage they’d taken of the previous year’s bus derby and get excited by it.
Dave and Barbara Mackintosh came to the fair from Wales, Massachusetts, and saw the bus derby for the first time Monday.
“It was very exciting,” said Barbara Mackintosh. “Fantastic.”
Przypek indicated that this year’s the fair was a success.
“Our attendance is up across the board,” he said.
He also said that there was great weather throughout the fair, and noted the variety of events, as well as the livestock competitions.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.