This is the reason I love Inuvik

The residents are absolutely nuts, but enjoy having a great time. Putting these two things together gives us the destruction derby. I'm not talking about some polished touring destruction derby that may tag along with a monster truck show. I'm talking a head out to the local quarry with 20 old junked up cars that have been modified by their owners (sweet paint jobs included) with minimal safety standards (although the volunteer FD was on site and they kept asking people to keep the emergency road clear) job.

I've heard that there was an annual demolition derby, but this was the first in four or five years. People were excited and it was the largest single gathering of people I have seen in Inuvik during my time here (this year or last). I think in total about 1000 people showed up. That's impressive in a town of about 3,500.

As noted above there were about 20 cars entered so there were a number of heats. I stayed for four complete and I think there may have been a fifth later on. Watching cars race around smashing into each other isn't exactly number one on my preferred activities list, however it was hard not to be influenced by the roars of the crowd whenever a collision took place. Basically it took place in a quarry and the organizers had created a ring for the cars by mounding dirt in a rough square.
When it was go time, six to eight cars would circle up in the inside with the rear of the cars at the centre of the circle. The air horn would sound and metal would be crunched. I took some video of a couple of rounds (as you can see I wasn't the only one) which turned out pretty nicely and managed to get some pretty good shots from my vantage point.
From watching a few rounds you could discern the basic strategy of balancing avoidance with smashing (primarily with the rear of your car so as to avoid any critical damage). When a driver considers their car out of the running, they wave a white flag (which each driver has) through their open roof and the other cars avoid them for the rest of the round. Then once the last car running takes home the crown, the front end loaders and construction equipment move in to remove the cars and pieces of cars that remain. Here are the best of the pictures from yesterday.

Sweet paint job. The ND fans are proud.

This was an epic battle to end heat one.

Pit Crews? Nah, just use a backhoe.

I washed down the derby with a visit to the gym, an hour and a half of frisbee tossing and some sweet sweet caribou for dinner. Here's a picture of that:

Tasty.

Enjoy the long weekend.

GK