Stranger Than Fiction (True Stories)
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In the pit the crew swarms J&M Fabrication, hammering and grinding metal. Welding sparks fly. Flat tires get changed. J&M's Miller, headed to the consolation round, says, "I don't care who wins as long as we can hit as hard as we can for as long as we can."
Describing the best way to hit, he says, "I use the brakes. On these combines there's a brake for each side, so if you lock one of them up, you can spin around and get that one end of the header going. It'll be going five, six times as fast as the combine, and when you hit somebody right on the corner, it does a lot of damage to their machine."
You swing your header, he says, like a windmill punch.
"It will blow that tire. It will break that wheel right off. That header can be traveling twenty, twenty-five miles an hour. It makes a boom. It'll lift the ass end of the combine right off the ground. The ass end, it'll be one, two feet off the ground."
Between heats a forklift and a tow truck enter the arena and clear away the dead-the busted angle iron and crushed headers. Rodeo queen Thompson throws T-shirts into the audience. The beer flows.
Back in the pit area, rookie drivers like Davis and Knodel, all of them college age except Garry Bittick, driving the Tank, line up for their heat.
Within the first minute, Jeff Yerbich and his Devastating Deere are dead, the result of two popped rear tires. Little Green Men rams the Tank, tilting the combine so high it almost topples over backward. Jaws loses a rear wheel. Mickie Mouse has its header crushed and wadded up like tinfoil. The Tank stops dead and drops its red flag. Jaws chases Mickie Mouse in a circle. Knodel drives his header into the Mouse's front tires, popping them. With the Mouse stopped, Jaws keeps ramming it until the judges make the dead combine drop its flag. Jaws loses a rear tire but drags itself along. The Viking is dead. The Tank has its header ripped off. Time runs out, leaving Jaws and Little Green Men tied as the winners.
In the pit area Bittick is recovering from nearly toppling under the five tons of number 5, the Tank. At forty-seven years old, he's getting into the rookie game a little late. His son Cody was supposed to be home from the army to drive but had run out of leave time. Instead, Cody sent the flags-an Army 82nd Airborne flag, an MIA flag, and a U.S. Army flag-that fly on the International Harvester combine, the one painted with desert camouflage and cartoons of camel-riding Arabs being chased by cruise missiles.
"It was just a lot of hard hits, everybody hitting at one time, head-on," Bittick says. "Of course, the tail end of my machine came up and tipped my header off, and we broke down. We could have flipped over." He says, "It gets your heart pumping. Without a seat belt it'll kick you right out of there."
For first-timers Davis and Knodel, it was a carnival fun ride. "It was great! It was funner than hell," says Davis, holding a beer can in one hand while his crew preps Mickie Mouse for the consolation round. "I got to go out there and beat the shit out of people for fun."
For Knodel and Jaws, tying for first was a little more work. "It was way more than I expected," Knodel says. "I didn't think I was going to have to concentrate as hard as I did. I was sweating very hard up there."
One of the few drivers not drinking beer or vodka, Knodel describes how it feels to be high up in the middle of the dust and the cheering: "Actually, you don't hear anything. I couldn't hear the crowd. The only thing I could hear was my engine. My engine actually powered out on me. I was going, and I couldn't hear that my engine had stopped. With the adrenaline pumping, I was still looking for somebody to come get me. The only way I knew I had the engine fired back up was that I could look over and see the fan blades, and finally I saw them spinning again. Then I was ready to go."
In the third heat the combines start out parked with their rear ends together, facing outward like the spokes in a wheel. Among another set of experienced drivers, Rambulance slices a rear tire of Good Ol' Boys. Porker Express rips the rear end off BC Machine. Good Ol' Boys crushes the rear end of American Spirit, shattering its rear axle. Porker Express loses its rear axle tie rods and steering. American Spirit digs itself too deep into the dirt and drops its flag, dead. Porker Express locks its header under the rear end of Rambulance. BC Machine is stopped, with its engine cover open and smoking; a moment later Chet Bauermeister gets it going again. Porker Express gets crushed between Good Ol' Boys and BC Machine. Good Ol' Boys loses both rear tires but keeps going on the rims. BC Machine is dead again. Good Ol' Boys rams Porker Express from behind, driving its pink rear end into the dirt. Good Ol' Boys gets to work, ramming BC Machine. Porker Express is dead. Rambulance is dead. Good Ol' Boys shoves BC Machine in circles until Bauermeister drops his flag. Good Ol' Boys driver Kyle Cordill is the winner.
In the pit area, winning and losing teams repair their combines for the final heat. The welding rods, cutting torches, and grinders shower sparks into the dry grass, and people chase the little wildfires, putting them out with cans of beer. Barbecues grill hot dogs and hamburgers. Kids and dogs roam around combines tilted and balanced on jacks.
Near number 17, Little Green Men, a group of girls drink beer and eye driver Kevin Cochrane.
Twenty years old, Cochrane says, "Yeah, there are combine-demolition groupies. I don't think there are groupies from Lind, but they're from other towns. They kind of follow the little circuit, I think. There are only two derbies, so that's a little circuit."
Cochrane looks at the girls as one of them leaves her friends and heads over. "What are the groupies like? First of all," he says, "she's kind of a hick. Cowboy boots and shit like that. Kind of just the country way, but not like her." He nods as the girl walks up. Her name is Megan Wills. When asked why there are no women drivers, she says, "Because it's fucked! Josh got his ass kicked!"
"There used to be women drivers," Cochrane says.
"One! A long time ago!" shouts Wills, whose brother is on the pit crew for number 14, Beaver Patrol. "There's no women driving because that shit's fucked-up! I'm not going to take my ass in there. Fuck that! I'd rather get drunk and service all the hotties than fuckin' drive that shit! Hell, no!"
Cochrane tilts back his beer, then says, "I think if you don't drink any, you get too nervous. You get in there and you're all nerved up and shit. You got to get a little laid-back."
Before the consolation round, the judges walk through the pit area, telling people their thirty minutes of repair time is more than up. Only Mickie Mouse and J&M Fabrication are ready and waiting in the arena. The sun is below the horizon, and it's getting dark fast. Over the loudspeaker the judges announce: "We need nine combines in the ring. We only have two. We got seven to go."