The demolition derby Thursday night will be a memorial tribute to a local competitor who died in early July.

Tim Strohl, owner of Old School Promotions in Palmerton, said the race will honor Travis Levan, a regular competitor at the Carbon County Fair.

Levan, 29, was a graduate of Palmerton Area High School, was “a hard-hitting kid,” Strohl said. “He definitely made the dirt fly.”

He was good at getting the crowd on their feet and cheering. “He was no sandbagger,” Strohl said. “He didn’t hold back.”

Friends have reached out to donate trophies, a helmet and other prizes for The Travis Levan Memorial Demo Derby, which kicks off at 7 p.m.

A 50/50 raffle will be held that night.

Strohl said everyone wants to be involved.

“He was a good kid who got along with everyone,” Strohl remembered.

The derby

No question, the junk car and demolition derbies are a big draw at local fairs.

Strohl said the idea for derbies came about when there was a crash out front of a diner and everyone ran out to see what happened.

People want to see the action and want to cheer on their friends.

This will be the 20th year Strohl is coordinating derbies. He works with Carbon County, West End and Plainfield Township for their fairs.

A lot of work goes into getting the track ready for the junk car derby at the Carbon County Fair.

In Carbon, many of the competitors are local, but West End, which offers a bigger cash prize, will draw competitors from a larger area.

A long history

Strohl’s love for derbies began when he sneaked into a car at age 15. He’s 52 now and never stopped. Strohl competed won derbies locally and in Maryland New York and New Jersey.

One paid out $1,600. “Back in the day that was like gold,” he said.

Now as promoter, he thinks about track prep and making sure everyone is following the rules.

Track prep requires Strohl to hire a machine operator who smooths the track and takes out all the bumps, and then when the derby is finished the machine operator has to push all the material back like it was before the demolition derby can be run.

“Thankfully we don’t have do that at any of any other places we promote,” said Kyle Strohl, the owner’s son.

Although it might look like mass confusion from where you are sitting in the stands, all of Strohl’s crew members know what their job is and everything runs smoothly.

Once you register your car at the gate, the car is inspected to make sure it doesn’t have too much reinforcement to make the car harder to damage.

Strohl’s experience is helpful in this respect. “We get a lot of guys who try to sneak things through,” he said. “I don’t know it all but I know enough.”

The rules for the junk car derby are not as stringent as they are for the demolition derby, according to Tim Strohl.

At the Carbon County Fair the junk car derby is 25 laps on a circular track and the driver who completes the 25 laps first is the winner and receives a cash prize.

During the pandemic, when new cars were short in supply, people hung onto their older cars or sold them with an inflated price so junk car derbies dropped off.

Township laws have cut down on the number of cars people store on their property. “Years ago people gave them to you to get them out of their yard.”

Cars that are intact get a higher price at the junkyard too.

Ultimately the goal of the demolition derby is to crash into the other cars until they quit running, then stall out and can’t restart.

“The goal is simple,” they said, “you just need to be one of the last two cars still moving and advance to the main event at the end of the evening.”

The last remaining car is the winner.

When asked if anything gets the crowd excited, Kyle Strohl said, “Yeah, when a car flips and rolls and ends back on it wheels, it gets the crowds in the bleachers really stomping their feet.”