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Comment by dullroar | Hacker News Reader

I am here to tell you, however, that the spectacle promised by a local county fair of a “combine demo derby” (as in, a demo derby with old combines) did NOT live up to the hype. Crashes there were, but at a lumbering 5MPH (TOPS) they were not “spectacular," especially when some of the combines had to help others get going again with helpful pushes. Let's say my ten-year-old son and I were "underwhelmed." :)

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Skid Steer Smackdown is way better. People get into it, you have the Cats (Caterpillar) versus the Kubs (Kubota)

I've never seen one, but I wonder if a motorhome/bus derby might be wild...

You can see these on Top Gear. They are spectacularly wonderful and I hope I get to experience one in real life some day.

To wit they've done everything. Bus derby, RV derby, trailer derby ... it always ends in wonderful amounts of destruction and spectacular crashes.

Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohkAxbeMxVo

Just saw one this past Sunday at the Alameda County Fair. It was okay. I don't know if it was typical, but there were only two RVs in the arena, presumably because of their large size and poor maneuverability. Also, because the drivers sit atop the engines instead of behind them, and because it wouldn't be cool for any high-slung wreckage to spear another driver through their front or side windows, they avoided frontal contact almost entirely.

Oh, and it turns out RVs disintegrate rapidly. I learned that it's not the carnage, per se, but the becoming of carnage that is entertaining. The show was over too quickly. In fact, it ended when one of them caught fire shortly after they lost their radiator. If there were more vehicles then that wouldn't have meant the end of the show. Maybe buses--well built buses--would have been more fun.

OTOH, the only demolition derby I'd been to previously was last year's derby at the Alameda County Fair, which was all cars. So probably I should be careful about generalizing.

EDIT: The 2017 fair had an RV demolition derby with 5 RVs in the arena: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Al1TISq_s

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