Sanders County Fair Board reopens bids for demo derby

During Monday’s regular Sanders County Fair Commission meeting, commission members voted to reopen, yet again, bidding for the 2025 fair’s demolition derby event.  

During a special meeting last month, commission members accepted a bid from Tim Denson, owner of 406 Promotions, for $95,000 with a stipulation that the bid would be reviewed by the county attorney.  

Upon review, the bid was rejected based on the cost exceeding the maximum amount of $80,000 allowed by the state, which required the bid to be open to the public.  

Randy Woods Fair Board Chair commented, “We didn’t follow the rules exactly, so we are starting again. We didn’t advertise it in the paper.”  

“With that I guess, do we want to go out to bid for it, or skip it all and do a concert and solve the problem,” Woods added.  

Sanders County Fair Manger Kristy Sheehan commented, “We could get some fairly good names in here like Chris Cagle and David Mayo.” 

Both are country and western singers. 

Woods commented that the demo for him was becoming such a problem.  

“We’re late in the year and we have got to figure something out,” Woods continued. “It seems that every time we turn around, we’re having another demo problem. So maybe we just look at the concert and forget the demo.” 

“We are looking at $25,000 to $30,000 for a concert to come in. If we can fill the seats then we can do it and if we don’t fill the seats we aren’t going to make the money the derby brings in,” Sheehan said.

Sanders County Commissioner John Holland made a comment, “I think we are going to have to up the concert [amount needed to bring a big-name musician to the fair] needed to fill the seats.” 

Woods made a motion to put the derby out for a bid and the motion was accepted by commission members. A request for demolition derby bids was advertised in a local newspaper for two weeks and needed to be submitted by Feb. 11. The bids will be opened for review at another special Fair Commission meeting.