July 4th--Demolition Derby!!!

Airika and I went with a group of friends yesterday to our very first Demolition Derby. It took quite a bit of coaxing to convince Airika that this was a good idea, but she came around. I couldn't resist spending most of the evening wandering through the crowd watching (and photographing) the people and the festivities.
As you can see I have included a few of the pictures below. For those of you who are interested in reading more about the evenings' adventures, there's more after the photos...
















Somehow I managed to get myself into trouble on two occasions last night, just by walking around. At one point a Cop confronted me and told me there had been a report that I was recklessly running through the crowd with my camera pushing people over. At first I thought my friends had played a joke on me, but he wasn't kidding. After he described the complaint in a little more detail I figured out what he was talking about. There actually had been an incident earlier, only the cop was given a wildly skewed version of the story. Here's what went down: I was leaving the aisle in which I was sitting in the bleachers. The last person sitting in the aisle was an old man, and as I passed him, he leaned back a little to give me a little more room and slid off the back of his seat. His legs flew up and tripped me, but I caught myself. By the time I got my flip flop back on, the man had a big smile on his face and someone else was already helping him up. I smiled back and went on my way.... That was it. Somehow, this turned into me pushing my way through crowds, knocking people over, and laughing at them. Weird. Normally this probably would have put a damper on my evening, but I was at a demolition derby--somehow it makes me feel like I've had a genuine Demo Derby experience because of this.

I nearly got in trouble again later on, but my 70-200mm f2.8IS lens came to the rescue. I was looking for the bathroom and somehow managed to leave the venue without getting the appropriate stamp on my hand so that I could get back in. As I tried to re-enter the guy watching the gate stopped me and asked to see my stamp. However, as soon as he saw that massive lens on my camera he said "never mind, I didn't realize you were the photographer!" I said "Yup!" and went on my way. That moment was totally worth the price of admission! Don't get me wrong here though--being mistaken as the photographer hired to shoot at a demolition derby is not all that exciting! I do not envy the man who puts his life on the line by standing in the middle of a figure 8 track to photograph cars as they skid and crash around him. The exciting part of that moment was getting in when I wasn't allowed just because of my camera. It still doesn't top watching a school bus jump over 3 cars and an RV, but it was nice...

Gerald