Derby winner has lady luck on his side

Matt Unrau

It takes a little bit of luck to win a derby, or maybe a lot of it. “Some years you have bad luck and some years you have good luck and this year has been a good year for me,” says Rick Sanders, winner of the 2009 Sanders County Fair demolition derby.

The luck that Sanders is talking about also came through in the Pablo derby where he placed second and the derby in Missoula a few weeks ago where he took home the first place prize and a $2,000 purse.

Going in the first of four heats, Sanders breezed through the round without incident and headed straight to the finals with his 1967 Chrysler Newport. In the finals round the hairiest point for Sanders came when he was pinned in a corner against the log.

It was down to four cars when he got lodged in the corner from a hard hit in the back of his car, but was able to maneuver his way out from the corner and Scott Pardee’s Belgrade, to free himself. From there he was able to push Pardee’s car onto a log and subdue John Knerr’s car with a few head shots to win the derby.

It was the third time that Sanders has won the Plains derby winning once in each decade beginning in 1987.

Sanders is a mainstay at the derby alongside with several other drivers including Jason Sheehan of Plains and Chad Pardee of Thompson Falls.

Sheehan also escaped the first heat to advance to the finals despite nearly getting pinned up against a log. He says staying away from the logs is crucial to keep advancing in the derby. “Me and logs don’t get along too well,” says Sheehan.

Other than that Sheehan takes a wait as he approaches the derby. “I go out there to bump around to see who is going to be weak. You try to take out those guys first,” says Sheehan. Sheehan was driving a 1967 Chrysler New Yorker.

On his part Sanders’ strategy just involves paying attention. “Pay attention, don’t leave yourself wide open and make smart hits.”

Chad won the derby last year and agrees with Sanders about a lot of luck being involved in the derby. He also says a key is building tough cars that are able to run hot. “That’s probably the best part of a car. If you hit a car that will run completely out of water and stay running for another fifteen minutes, you got a winner,” says Chad.

Chad along with his brother Scott were part of a group of cars nicknamed the Bozeman Crash Crew. The six cars that they brought to the derby were assembled in Bozeman including Chad’s car.

Julien Morice, of the Bozeman Crash Crew, was working with Chad on his car in between the rounds cutting away medal shards near the tires. According to him the tough cars that Chad mentions are the Imperials that he call the “Godfather” of demo derbies.

“What we do is take the front ends out of the Imperial and strap them on another car, because Imperials are hard to find and spend weeks and months manipulating the car to make it good,” says Morice. The front end of both Chad and Sander’s cars were imperial front ends.

Despite winning the derby last year Chad says he likes to put on a show out there. “I’m out there to hit cars and please the crowd. I’m not in there to win it,” says Chad.

By far the biggest crowd pleaser of the derby was one of the first hits of the night as Lawrence Hill from Dixon in his Lincoln Continental smashed into Preston Kinnison of Colombia Falls. Hill hit Kinnison so hard that he drove right under him forcing Kinnison’s car up over the top of his own making a car pile. Demo derby workers walking around the arena all were heard gasping in awe as they had never before seen anything like that happen before at a derby.

Brett Migue of Seattle was the big winner of the powder puff derby, wile Tescha Stark of Thompson Falls came in second.