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Smash hit: Combine demolition derby featured in documentary
By D.A. WILKINSON
SALEM
There’s not much you can do with an old combine except let it rust, restore it or ram it into other old combines.
People who like and pay for the opportunity to take part in controlled mayhem with combines are at the heart of a new documentary by Molly Merryman, a Kent State University associate professor of sociology.
A free screening of “Country Crush,” a film that focuses on the combine- demolition derby at the Columbiana County Fair, will be at 7 p.m. Sept. 1 at the Kent State University Salem City Center Campus. Western Reserve PBS also will show the documentary at 9 p.m. Sept. 7.
The documentary is on what has been described as “the wacky, weird combine demolition derby, a sport where giant, old combines face off in a battle of metal-bending prowess.”
John Wolf, president of the county fair, said the combine demolition event “is pretty much the same thing” as the car-demolition event that ends the fair each year.
The combines are modified for the drivers who are referred to as “corn heads” or “grain heads” depending on what they harvest in real life.
The large, chopping blades on combines used to harvest crops are removed to avoid injury to drivers during the collisions. Some combines also have sharp metal points that are also removed to avoid puncturing tires.
That, Wolf said, puts the contestants on the same level: metal against metal.
“The last one moving gets the cash,” he said.
Merryman described “Country Crush” as a “niche film.”
She said that she had seen the combine derby with her family about 10 years ago. “It’s a very friendly competition,” she said.
No one is going to get rich on the combine demolition-derby circuit. Entries that cost $100 to enter might bring a $350 prize.
Merryman said her next production will focus on the police academy at Kent’s Trumbull branch.
She said it takes her about three years to make a documentary.