CONCEPT AND STORY

DEMO HISTORY

Larry Mendelsohn (left) in 1966.
According to the popular version of the sport's origin, stock car driver Larry Mendelsohn is credited with organizing and promoting the first true demolition derby, in Long Island, New York, in the late 1950s. However, there are accounts of earlier events. The best-documented account of another early event describes West-coast racing promoter Don Basile's 1946 staging of a "full-contact" race among four drivers at Carroll Speedway in Gardena, California. In Basile's
event the participants' cars had been secretly rigged to disintegrate upon impact. Purists argue that the event was a race and not a true demolition derby — in which the sole objective is to smash and disable the competition. The description of this event is more similar to what has become the popular sport of "Banger Racing" in England as well as several European countries and Australia.

Despite its uncertain beginnings, the sport's popularity grew steadily throughout the 1960s, establishing a strong tradition in county fairs in rural communities and becoming identified as a quirky subculture on the national level. ABC's Wide World of Sports, provided occasional national coverage of demolition derby in the early 1970s.

One of the more memorable demolition derby events was in 1972 at the Los Angeles Coliseum with Indianapolis 500 champions A.J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Parnelli Jones, and Bobby and Al Unser. The Indy champs not only smashed beautiful new cars, but also destroyed Evel Knievel's donated Rolls Royce.