ATHENS, Ohio – Five entered, but only one came out on top.
The Federal Hocking Local School District emerged victorious in the Athens County Fair’s debut school bus demolition derby, held at the county fairgrounds on Wednesday, Aug. 7. All five county school districts Athens City, Alexander Local, Federal Hocking Local, Trimble Local and Nelsonville-York Local — were represented in the event.
The school bus derby is an addition to the fair’s traditional Thursday night demolition derby.
First in the arena were buses representing Alexander and Federal Hocking. After a long battle of endurance, Alexander’s engine failed and Federal Hocking won match one.
Next, Athens and Nelsonville-York buses entered the arena. Both schools managed to escape engine failure until the timer on the match ran out, marking a tie result for match two.
Athens, Nelsonville-York and Federal Hocking then engaged in the final match of the night. After Nelsonville-York and Athens’ engines consecutively failed, Federal Hocking claimed the trophy until next year’s derby.
Trimble’s bus failed to start before the event started, so it was disqualified from the competition.
The crowd for the event filled nearly every seat in the grandstands, with a surplus of patrons filling the area around the derby arena.
“It was definitely a good night,” Athens County Senior Fair Board President Jeremy Carr told the Independent. “It was a great turnout. It’s one of the biggest crowds we’ve ever had.”
Photo by Emma V. Hartman.
School bus derby origins
According to Carr, he and fellow board member Davey Christman came up with the idea for the school bus derby after seeing it at a couple of other fairs in Ohio.
“It’s a newer idea,” Carr said. “There’s a fair in Washington Courthouse that I went to and watched. There’s also a fair in Pike County that did it.”
To find buses for the derby, Carr tried contacting local schools to little avail. Eventually, he found five abandoned buses in a scrapyard in Coshocton. In the future, he hopes to keep the business more local.
“Maybe next year I can get them more locally through the schools and keep the money here in the community,” Carr said.
After retrieving the buses from the scrapyard, Carr went about finding derby drivers to represent different schools in the region.
“I went to talk to the bus superintendents at each school. We talked about having school bus drivers do it; Some of them wanted to and some didn’t,” Carr said. “We decided to just hire derby drivers who were experienced with derbying to drive them.”
An alumnus from each district drove the bus representing his respective alma mater: Mickey West drove the bus for the Athens City School District; Dale Sinclair drove for Alexander, Brian Gould drove for Federal Hocking, Brian Miller drove for Trumble and Josh Coen drove for Nelsonville-York.
The rules for a school bus demolition derby are the same as for a typical demolition derby: Remove all glass from the vehicles and to avoid ramming directly into the driver’s side door. Otherwise, everything is fair game.
“There really are no rules,” Carr said. “The only thing we did was take all the glass out of them and the drivers did little things to them for their safety.”
According to Carr, the planning process went smoothly, and the schools were excited to decorate their buses and attend the event.
“Everybody that helped us — like the drivers — would just come in and work on the buses. We had a lot of support from local school bus garages with lending us hands and batteries to put in [the buses],” Carr said.
Two Federal Hocking students, Carson and Zane, were involved in painting their district’s bus.
“About six of us helped paint,” Carson said. “And I think the driver paid for all [the paint] himself.”
According to Carr, Zonez and McKee Auto Parts were major sponsors of the event, with Zonez providing the large decals found on each bus.
Planning for the future
Carr hopes to expand the event in future years.
“I think next year will be better. Just from the kids going back to school in a couple weeks, they’re going to be talking about it,” Carr said. “Maybe next year we’ll get the student sections a little bit bigger and it’ll be more like a ball game with rooting and cheering.”
Ideally, Carr would like to see more schools in the region get involved, specifically Beacon School and Tri-County Career Center.
“Every year the schools swap out buses and get rid of some,” Carr said. “I’d like to get them involved and maybe bring those buses here.”
For now, Federal Hocking holds the trophy and derby-lovers will have to wait until 2025 to see which bus rolls into the victory spot.
The fair closes Sunday, Aug. 11. For more information, visit the fair’s website.
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