Demolition derby drivers crack up to aid charities

Potomac Speedway has held events since 1972

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by REID SILVERMAN Smoke pours from under the hood of Justin Pickeral’s car after a rear-end collision. Pickeral, from Waldorf, competed May 31 at Budds Creek. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo Driver Amanda ‘‘Pebbles” Dement waits for the action to start at the demolition derby. Click here to enlarge this photo Larry Pascal’s winning No. 7 car slams into another driver at the demolition derby.

‘‘The official said, ‘You’re on fire,’” said Hanbury. ‘‘I said, ‘Yeah, I know – I’m going for it!’.” The official eventually told Hanbury to bail out of the car, which he reluctantly did.

At the first night of this year’s derby on May 31, that determined spirit was in abundant evidence.

David Nickless of Lexington Park said this was the fifth derby for his vehicle, a small truck painted like a school bus. Not that it had all the original parts. This was its second transmission, second radiator, second hood, second rear end and rear axle, said Nickless. It has needed ‘‘lots of straightening and unbending.”

Nickless showed off his orange ‘‘Team Nickless” T-shirt, and said the derby is a family project for his nine brothers and sisters and multiple nephews and nieces. They all work on the vehicles, he said, and he and his brother Keith both drive.

Nickless said before the derby that he had never won since he first entered in 1998 with his wife’s 1979 Ford LTD. He keeps entering, he said, because ‘‘I love crashing cars. It’s fun.” It’s not for the prize money, said Nickless. ‘‘We never win more than it costs us.”

Hanbury, who lives in Lexington Park and was in the derby for the eighth year, said he does it because ‘‘it’s just real fun ... exciting. It’s an adrenaline rush you wouldn’t believe.”

He also does it for the Lions Club, which donates the proceeds to charities including scholarship funds for the College of Southern Maryland and Prince George’s Community College; the Mechanicsville, Silver Hill, and Newburg fire departments; Operation Happy Note, which sends musical instruments to soldiers in Iraq; Council House, a senior home in Marlow Heights; Camp Merrick, for deaf, blind and diabetic children; and the Silver Hill Boys and Girls Club.

The club has sponsored the derby since 1972, said member Barry Wilen, and raises about $50,000 each year. More than 2,000 spectators come on a good night, he said, though the crowd was a bit smaller on May 31 because of heavy rain earlier in the evening. The derby was also held on June 7, and upcoming dates are Sept. 6 and 13.

Wilen said nobody has been seriously hurt in the derby in 36 years, but chief track official Danny ‘‘PacMan” Moffat, of Waldorf, said a scary accident 10 years ago ended his driving days. ‘‘I was always the show king of the derby,” Moffat said. He said the crowd ‘‘gave me goosebumps.”

But one night, three cars including his own hit hard at the same time, and Moffett whipped back ‘‘like a rag doll” in his car. He was flown to Washington Hospital Center, where doctors found two of his vertebrae fused together, and feared he might be paralyzed. ‘‘That scared me enough to say, ‘I’m done,’” said Moffat. Since then, he has served as a track official.

Driver Amanda ‘‘Pebbles” Dement, one of the few women to enter, said this is her second derby. In the first one, she won second place. ‘‘It’s just fun,” said the 5-foot, 100-pound Dement, who lives in Huntingtown.

Dement had two crew members with her, wearing shirts reading ‘‘Daddy” and ‘‘Hubby.” She said she spent four months preparing her car, which had red ‘‘Pebbles” hair and a bone attached to the roof. When asked what makes a good car, Dement said, ‘‘a big one.”

As the stands filled up near race time, Moffat strolled by to pick up a final soda before climbing into the official’s stand. Kids surrounded him, asking to help start the race and for autographs on their shirts. Moffat granted a race start to three excited girls, two of whom were visiting from New Orleans, and signed a little boy’s T-shirt in block ‘‘PacMan” letters.

The derby started almost an hour late because of lineup changes as a result of the rain. In the first heat of the evening, the large stock cars, the Pebbles car stopped early, and Dement didn’t place.

David Nickless won the truck derby with his yellow ‘‘school bus.”

As for ‘‘Hammer” Hanbury, he won his heat, a modified stock derby that trucks surviving the truck derby were also allowed to enter.