OXFORD — South Paris teen Allyson Moore had her hands full Friday night at the Oxford Fair, ramming guys driving equally beat up cars during a combined men’s and women’s demolition derby.

Seventeen-year-old Moore, driving a 2006 Ford Taurus station wagon with hot pink spray-painted rims, took third place in the 30-minute metal massacre in front of a large crowd.

Dalton Hinkley of Fryeburg, driving an intensely-smoking 1998 Chrysler LHS on two tires and two rims, won the event, outlasting second-place finisher Jason Lashin of Oxford. Lashin drove a 1997 Lincoln Town Car on two rims and two tires.

The winner got $500 and everyone else $200.

With both mangled cars smoking, Hinkley continued to ram the rear of the Chrysler into the Lincoln, which couldn’t get out of the way before the engine died.

“It was hot,” Hinkley said afterward.

“The smoke was filling up my car very fast and I was hoping his car was going to break before mine. I didn’t think it would last as long as it did.”

The event drew a large crowd, many of them telling others that they always come out to watch the demolition derby.

There were several close calls for Moore, who also took third place last year.

Her strategy was simple — ram the rear of the wagon into the wheels of opponents cars.

“I try to break their axles,” she said prior to the event.

“If you hit a wheel hard enough, you can break their axle. That’s what my dad told me.”

One driver did the same to her car, however, bending her passenger-side front wheel into the frame, but Moore kept driving hard despite the handicap.

At one point while Lashin and Hinkley were battering each other by slamming the rear ends of their cars together repeatedly, Moore barely squeaked the Taurus between them to line up for a slammer of her own on Lashin’s Lincoln.

The daring move elicited a loud “ooh” from the crowd who thought Moore was going to get violently crunched. It was immediately followed by applause and shouts of “Go, Allyson!”

Eventually though, Moore’s car stalled and became a target for Lashin and Hinkley until they realized she wasn’t in the running for the $500 cash prize for first place.

At the start of the event, only Moore and Tori Burgess of Buckfield signed up for the Ladies Division.

In the men’s division, John Merchant of Mexico watched Jeremy Lauzier of Mexico climb into their 1993 Mercury Topaz, complete with a Courtesy Cab light atop it.

Merchant said he just bought the Courtesy Cab business in the River Valley area and he and friends from T.W. Lawncare, Advance Turf Care, Dixfield Salvage and Courtesy Cab built the car for the derby.

Their driver was Scott Knowlton, who proved his prowess at demolition by quickly driving to one end of the ring, and then racing in reverse several times to noisily slam into other cars.

Their only strategy was “to stay alive,” Merchant said.

Driver Josh Brown of Pownal said he enjoys demolition derbies.

“It’s a good time and it attracts a lot of people,” he said. “You get to do what you want to do on a daily basis to the driver ahead of you. Here, we’re putting on a show and that’s what it’s all about.”

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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