ROLLOVER

I told you about some of the different events you find at different county fairs in my last post. Well, the Harrison County Fair in Southern Indiana also has one of those special events. It's the rollover competition during the big car demolition derby on Friday night.

Now the guys who do this aren't high paid stunt drivers like you see in the movies. They're plain people like you and me who simply like to get upside down in a car. They do make sure they have all the safety features needed to do this right, the roll cage, safety harness, window netting, everything you need to tumble a car and then be able to get out and walk after tearing it up.

Now there is a true art in getting one of these cars to go upside down and back on its wheels. You have to have the right speed and it helps if you've got the right kind of car. Most of those who competed used the smaller cars with a high center of gravity making them easy to turn over. You have the hit the ramp just right and also yank the steering wheel at the right time for a little extra pop. If you put all of these combinations in the order needed and get your timing right you can easily make one of these cars do a standup jig. Now the car you see in this picture didn't have everything quite right when he made this attempt. The one thing wrong here is the wheels are straight. On this attempt the car simply came back down on all fours and didn't land on its side or the roof.

Now the driver of this car shows how to get it done. He came into the ramp carrying a lot of speed and got the car to do a little shake and bake on it's nose. Scoring is done by how you land, so many points if you're on your side, on your roof and it adds up more the more you roll. If you can get it to roll more than once then even more points are tallied in.....plus it sends the crowd into a frenzy....always a plus. One driver hit the ramp almost center and instead of getting upside down, ripped open his oil pan spilling the contents onto the track....never a good thing if you want to keep the car running. Anytime you can get the car on its nose, however, is a grand crowd pleaser and I can promise you they will let you know it.

Of course getting a car to roll over and over is the best thing. The driver of this car knew exactly what he needed to do. Not only did he roll this car once but he made it fly again with another complete rollover. Anytime you can get a car to do a dance routine like this one you're going to get a good ovation from those in the stands. The sound of sheet metal scrunching into scrap metal seems to push the adrenal gland to its max.

And everybody likes a good flier. I remember a car a few years ago that launched his car more than 8 feet off the ground as he rolled it on its roof and then on its wheels. And what did the driver think when he got out??? He jumped on what was left of the roof and pumped both fists in the air finishing off with a primordial scream.

And there's one person I don't want to leave out in all over this. That is Kentucky's own Mealy Brown, otherwise known as the Tin Man. Brown has been rolling over cars for more than 30 years. The big thing is he's 69 years young and loves what he does. His car is named after the Tin Man from the story The Wizard of Oz and comes complete with smoking tin hat. In this competition Brown didn't fare as well as he has in other competitions but he still loves throwing that little car on its roof. A couple of years ago he missed the ramp altogether and slammed into a concrete barrier. The car was damaged enough it couldn't finish that competition but it didn't stop him. He came back the next year and rolled it twice onto its wheels and kept going.