Cannon Falls III: Combine Demolition Derby

After bicycling, the sculpture garden, and tubing (what, this isn't what you do on a typical vacation day?), Eryn and I changed out of our stinky river clothes and met up with Pooteewheet and Kyle at the Cannon Falls bicycling lot, where the Cannon Valley Trail starts. They'd been checking out the winery and the swans, and at least Pooteewheet stopped by Little Oscar's to have the hashbrown-laded Caboose Burger (sooooo good). I asked her if she'd seen $100 lying around.

Everyone was meeting up so that we could go to the 2009 Cannon Valley Fair. I had heard from my boss that there was a combine demolition derby that took place during the event, and it seemed like something that had to be seen to be appreciated. We wandered the fair (poor Miss Minnesota whatever year she was - she was just wandering around the fair grounds with her chaperone and no one asking her for a picture) and checked out a few of the rides and the food and animals. Then we spent several hours watching combines, pickups and compact cars smashing into each other. I think I have the consensus of my fellow watchers when I state that it would be exciting to see a combine/compact car combination demolition derby.

The videos are below the photos if you want to jump to the live action.

Each combine has a theme and does a circle of the demolition area to show off. Here we see a beach theme. Beach balls fly out of the hopper. Following combines tried to run over as many beach balls as possible to prove their superiority.


This combine sported a General Lee Dukes of Hazard theme. There was also The Incredible Hulk and a ladybug.


This is what happens when a combine takes a solid hit. According to the rules of Cannon Valley Fair Combine Demolition Derby you can get pushed back up once by the forklift.


But getting tipped over seems to have an impact on your ability to retain important fluids. See the missing wheel on the back? That's the #1 bit of damage in a combine demolition derby. You'd think that would stop them, but they just keep going, even without the back wheels at all in some cases. Particularly if they're those big John Deere monstrosities. It was amusing to watch the big John Deeres in the ring with the tiny old ladybug combine. The ladybug would run around letting the big combines duke it out and then every once in a while run into a combine in tandem with another with a great big, "tink".


Combines at play. You can see a few of the John Deere combines and the ladybug.


And here's a plethora of video. Pooteewheet seems to have shot everything in 30 second or less segments, so you have to watch in incremental pieces.

Extended demolition:


Combine gets its tail crunched:


A big hit...


Tipping over:


A combine tire bites the dust:


A pickup pushed through the retaining wall (not by a combine):