High-impact collisions, roaring engines and the suspense of seeing which heavily reinforced vehicle will outlast the rest makes the demolition derby one of the most popular events at the Park County Fair year after year. 

“Not very many people can say that their hobby is to spend months putting in blood, sweat and tears into their cars, just so that they can go out into a muddy arena and run into each other on purpose,” said head derby judge Dereck Hutzenbieler. “I think the fans don’t realize the amount of work that goes into it, but they like to see a car crash. There’s a lot of horsepower in some of these cars, and they have some loud exhaust.”

Hutzenbieler has been around the demolition derby his entire life as Don Adams, the coordinator for the finale event on Saturday, July 25, is his grandpa.

“It’s been in my family for a long time,” he said. “I can remember being 3 or 4 years old and being out in the garage helping them, or just being in the way.”

He began driving when he was 15 years old, and drove consistently from about 2005-2019. Since then he only occasionally builds a car and has done more judging. This year he takes over as head judge. 

In the role, Hutzenbieler promotes the derby events and finds sponsorships for prize money. He also has to get insurance for the events, build the track and check in cars as they come through the gate. During the fair it’s a quick turnaround to get the track ready. With the Figure 8 races the previous evening, they have just Saturday morning to build it. 

“Those are all the things I have to do behind the scenes that a lot of people probably wouldn’t know,” he said. “I also have a lot of help doing some of those things.” 

Once the derby starts the head judge watches for rule violations, ensures fair competition, penalizes safety violations like driver-door hits and declares the winner of each heat. 

His main goal this year is to see more drivers involved, as participants have been on the decline because of the high costs of building cars.  

“If you’re doing it for money you’re doing it for the wrong reason because you almost never make back what you put into the car, but we would really like more people in the main class,” he said. “We always do a pretty good job of ticket sales for the fair derby. It’s very uncommon for us not to sell out so we really are striving to try to get more drivers involved to keep the fans interested. We want to make sure that we put on a good show for them.”

The most popular class for entries over the last few years has been the chain-up class, which Hutzenbieler said is less expensive.

“You buy a car that runs for a couple hundred bucks, and then you put a weekend’s worth of work into it, and you can usually have it ready to go,” he said. “You’re not allowed to modify the motor, you’re not allowed to do a bunch of the things that the other classes are doing.”

Gates on Saturday open at 5 p.m. with the action beginning at 6 p.m. The main class will feature heats, a grudge match and then the finals. In between will be the chain-up, heavy weld and compact classes.

This year the derby will be using Montana Class Two rules, which Hutzenbieler said allows for less welding than the previous Bighorn Basin Unified Limited Weld rules. This means the cars will bend more when they crash into each other. The rule changes will also make building cars slightly less expensive. 

“You kind of have a paywall where guys that are just getting into it can’t afford to compete with the guys that have been doing it for years and years,” he said. “We’re trying to eliminate that.”

The purse is worth $22,000, with $10,000 for the main class, and $4,000 for each filler class.

“A big thanks to our sponsors because without them we couldn’t do any of this,” Hutzenbieler said. “We really appreciate them.”

Tickets range from $23-$28 and can be purchased on the Park County Fair website at tickets.parkcountyeventsandfair.com/p/tickets.