"There's no insurance," Knodel adds. "We don't sign anything, which is amazing. You'd think the Lions Club would have us sign something saying that if somebody gets hurt they're not liable, but I didn't sign anything. All of us out here, we're here to have fun. We realize we're at our own risk."
The grandstands are filling up. A long string of cars and trucks is pulling into the gravel parking lot. A water truck is wetting down the dirt in the rodeo arena.
At the beginning of the derby, the combines enter the arena and park in two long rows. As they wait, the crowd stands. The Lind rodeo queen for the third year running, Bethany Thompson, wearing red-white-and-blue sequins and holding an American flag, gallops on her horse faster and faster around the assembled combines. As Thompson gains speed, her flag snapping in the wind, the combine drivers stand with their right hands over their hearts, and the three thousand onlookers recite the Pledge of Allegiance. People visiting here from the city get slapped or punched in the back and yelled at for not taking off their hats.
The derby consists of four heats: the first is for drivers who have competed here before, the second is for rookies, the third is another for experienced drivers, and the fourth begins with a consolation round for all the losing combines that can still run. After the fight, the winners from the first three heats enter the arena, and everyone still moving-winners and losers-fights to the death.
After the pledge, a judge reads a tribute written by driver Casey Neilson and the crew of combine number 9, a 1972 McCormick International 503 with an ambulance light bar spinning red and blue lights on top. Neilson's good-luck charm is the Afro wig he always wears while driving. People call him Afro Man. He calls his combine Rambulance.
Over the loudspeaker you hear: "The crew of Odessa Trading Company would like to take a moment to thank the men and women of EMS and local volunteer fire departments for all their hard work and dedication. If it weren't for you, some of us would not be here."
All but seven combines leave the arena, and the first heat begins.
Over the loudspeaker, a judge says, "Lord, help us have a good show and a safe show tonight."
Right off the bat, Mark Schoesler, in the Turtle, loses a rear tire. Mean Gang-Green and J&M Fabrication butt headers. The BC Machine, the Silver Bullet, and Beaver Patrol throw dirt in the air, chasing one another in a circle. The engines roar, and you breathe in the exhaust. Mean Gang-Green's rear tire gets popped. J&M Fabrication's rear tire gets popped, and the driver, Justin Miller, looks to be in trouble, stuck in one place and ducking down, disappearing into the engine compartment of his combine. The Silver Bullet is stopped dead and declared out by a judge, and driver Mike Longmeier drops his red flag. Beaver Patrol has a rear wheel completely torn off, then its rear axle, but it keeps going, dragging itself through the dirt with just its front wheels. Then Red Lightnin' crushes Beaver Patrol's rear end. The engine housing pops open on Mean Gang-Green and smoke pours out. Red Lightnin's engine catches fire. J&M Fabrication comes back to life, Miller reappearing in the driver's seat. Beaver Patrol drags along in the dirt. J&M rips the rear end off the Turtle. The beer keg falls off Mean Gang-Green. The rear axle rips off the Turtle. And Miller is stopped dead again. The judges wave the Turtle out, and Schoesler drops his red flag. J&M Fabrication is out, Beaver Patrol is out, and Mean Gang-Green is the winner.
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.