Grady drives to state championship

By Rudy Coggins
Published in Sports on November 9, 2013 11:49 PM

• Print
• Email

The first bone-jarring, fender-bending hit was the worst, leaving Kenny Grady fearful that his day was done.

But he took a deep breath, put his car back in gear, tapped the gas pedal and the 1974 Chrysler Newport rattled back to life on the dusty N.C. State Fairgrounds track.

He wasn't about to let one crunching blow ruin his demolition derby dream.

So were his teammates -- the "Black and Green" crew that also consisted of Joseph Davis, Chris "Crummy" Radford and Chris "Arab" Lane. The quartet banged away on the opposition for a couple of minutes until Goldsboro's Donald Stokes got flipped over and pinned in his car.

Emergency workers needed 40 minutes to remove Stokes, who was transported to a nearby hospital and later released.

"Right out of the gate, they didn't wet the track and it was a very fast-paced derby," Davis said. "We derbied for about two minutes, Donald got flipped (and) during that little intermission we walked around and looked at everybody's cars. It looked like normal derby aftermath ... lot of stuff was torn slam up.

"My car, it hadn't bent. It was stout. Kenny got beat on pretty good."

Stokes had delivered the initial hit on Grady before becoming the first driver to retire from the 14-car derby. Tow trucks remained busy the rest of the competition as the V-8 Class cars, which soon resembled junk heaps, suffered crippling hits and stalled to the delight of the grandstand crowd in attendance.

Grady and Davis muscled their way through the mayhem. The duo avoided frame-to-frame contact, which helped keep the radiators of their respective cars clean. They also avoided taking hits to the wheels, which can render a car helpless if damaged or broken.

"You have to run sometimes, protect your car the best you can," grinned Grady, who competed in his first-ever state championship derby.

"We were hitting hard, which is pretty much all you can do in a derby. There were some good, hard hits given."

As the derby progressed, the black and green team stayed alive. Radford and Lane were eventually knocked out, which left Grady and Davis against the other cars decorated with pink duck tape.

Grady and Davis worked to eliminate the competition and found themselves facing each other in the final round. Remembering their promise, they held nothing back and hit each other harder than they'd hit anybody else during the day.

Grady emerged the champion and earned a trip to the nationals in Ohio next May.

Davis was satisfied with runner-up.

"He pinched my fuel line and knocked his harmonic balancer off," said Davis, who drove a 1976 New Yorker. "It didn't need to go no further. My goal was to have that trophy come back to Stevens Mill Road where we build our cars at my house, and that's what we did.

"We set a goal and we reached it. When it all shook out, black and green was all that mattered."

*

Catching the fever from competing in a demolition derby can become an addictive, expensive hobby that consumes not only your time, but lightens your wallet, too.

The average "shell" of a car runs between $500 to $1,000, and can be found at any junkyard. The critical parts needed to make the car functional require considerable cash, but can be salvaged after each derby if they're not severely damaged.

"You can invest as much as ten grand with bolt-on parts like gas and break pedals, drive chain, tranmission, cradles ...," Davis said. "You can re-use that money on any car from there on out until you break it. You can break even on the scrap metal, but to pay back on the other parts, that's when you have to start winning derbies.

"It's a lot of money."

Grady, who was introduced to derby racing by his uncle, and Davis each received entry to the state fair competition by taking first place in Troy. Radford qualified in Sparta, while Lane qualified in another derby.

Lane took the trio under his wing nearly two months before the derby in Raleigh. The crew built three Newport/New Yorker products in three weeks. Chrysler cars swept the top three spots.

A proud Grady glanced at the bent, scarred, clay-caked junk heap sitting on the trailer. His first-place trophy glistened in the early afternoon sun.

"The competition was tough," Grady said. "But what I enjoy the most is hanging out with my buddies, horsepower (of the cars) and winning."