Author Archives

sgtwolvehttp://blog.burrillstrong.com/

Chelsea Fair Figure 8 Demolition Derby: 22 August 2013

Thursday night was the figure 8 demolition derby. I’d never been able to see a figure 8 derby, but my schedule finally allowed me to get to this year’s derby to see what it was all about.

As it turns out, the figure 8 derby is substantially different from the regular derby. The point of the regular derby is to be the last car running, and the method of removing other cars from the running is repeatedly smashing into them until they stop running (and hoping your car doesn’t give out because of it). On the other hand, the figure 8 derby is a race. It’s a full-contact race, but it’s primarily a race. The cars drive in a figure 8 pattern around two large tires for 12 laps. The first car to complete 12 laps wins. There were far fewer collisions in the middle of the 8 than I expected; most of the contact occurs around the turns. It’s highly entertaining, but in a different way than the regular derby. It certainly seemed faster paced!

Here’s one of the tires marking one of the turns:

The figure 8 derby uses smaller cars than does the regular derby.

It was difficult to figure out the makes and models of some of the cars, but one was immediately obvious to me:

Do you know what that is? That’s an old Dodge Neon. It looks like one of the earlier models.

Some of you might look at the smoke coming out of this car, read the car’s number, and then chuckle:

This driver pushed this old Saturn as hard as possible, and it showed:

The Pac-Man car caught my eye:

That’s it for the 2013 demolition derby photos, but stay tuned: there are more fair photos yet to come!

Chelsea Football vs Belleville: 6 September 2013

Chelsea football traveled to Belleville for its second game of the season. As usual, the Bulldogs took the field by running through their banner, but this time things didn’t go as planned. Here are the photos:

Here’s the above sequence animated:

Do you see what happens when you don’t stay in your lanes, gentlemen?!

The rest of the team took the field with no trouble.

This was the scene during the anthem:

Among the pictures I take, there are a scant few that have made me sit back and just look for a minute. The above is one such picture.

This was happening during the game:

Unfortunately, this was happening at halftime:

This tackle stopped Belleville just shy of the end zone on third down:

Sadly, Belleville kicked a field goal to take a 17-14 lead, and that ended up being the final score.

The Bulldogs next face the Saline Hornets. The game will be in Chelsea on Friday at 7pm. Be there!

Chelsea Fair Demolition Derby: 21 August 2013

The second evening of the derby drew another big crowd.

MWAH:

Every once in a while a car loses a sliiiiiightly important part.

The driver wasn’t amused by that development, but as you can see in the above photo, the crowd enjoyed it.

Another car got stuck on the wall.

When the heat was done, the car that lost more than just a tire needed some help to exit the arena.

Here’s a closer look at the damage.

If you had told 10 year old me I would see this device doing this task at a demolition derby someday, I probably would have said “A WHATphone?”

I also probably would have said “Where do you put the VHS tape?” and also maybe “Who are you and why are you talking so confidently about the year 2013?”

Partway through the derby, the officials stopped the action and the firefighters rushed to a car that clearly wasn’t on fire.

Before long, paramedics joined the firefighters.

From my angle I couldn’t see what they were doing, but they worked for a bit — maybe 10-15 minutes — until the driver emerged with her arm heavily reinforced.

I got a chance to talk to the driver a week later. It was an unpleasant injury that’ll take time to heal, but she’ll be okay. Injuries like that aren’t common in the derby — I couldn’t remember seeing a stoppage like that, and another spectator could remember seeing only one other similar stoppage — but things can happen when you crash a bunch of cars into each other.

When everyone was clear, the derby resumed. And there were more people recording the action.

There was a young fan enjoying the derby, too.

A bit later there was a very minor fire.

Fires like that aren’t uncommon in the derbies, and they’re typically short-lived and inconsequential. This one was no exception. But it made for a fun photo!

There was a pickup truck heat during the Wednesday derby. Since trucks are built to stay in one piece and run forever, the truck derbies tend to be a lot of fun.

Remember what I said in the Tuesday derby post about the moment when a radiator explodes with a loud POP and a cloud of steam and the crowd laughs and cheers? This is what that looks like:

Now that I think about it, perhaps SHUMP would a better description of that sound. Would you agree, derby aficionados?

MWAH:

When the trucks were done rumpling metal, the cars came back out for the Wednesday final.

That’s it for the regular demolition derby photos, but there are plenty of fair photos to come!

Chelsea Fair: 21 August 2013

The Chelsea Fair has always included plenty of livestock, but a relatively new offering at the fair is a barn that features both recently born animals and live births (if the timing is right). When I visited the barn, I found a crowd around the piglets.

Elsewhere, there were rabbits. Lots and lots of rabbits. I found one rabbit that was having an especially relaxing afternoon.

When I was browsing the craft barn, I found a craft with a familiar face on it:

Those are newspaper flowers in a newspaper bag, and as you can see, the newspaper she used for the front of the bag is the front page from the week I was named Chelsea citizen of the year. Kira, the cheerful young Chelsea resident who made that craft, told me she used that page on purpose and asked them to be sure it was visible. Thank you, Kira!

CHS Marching Band: 30 August 2013

As a football fan I tend to highlight the football itself, but there are people beyond the football team working to make Friday nights at Jerry Niehaus Field what they are. One example is the CHS marching band, a (large!) group that works hard to provide a fun soundtrack to every home football game. When I processed the photos from Friday’s game, I realized I had enough band photos for a separate post, so…here they are!

Thanks to the band for all its hard work. And if you haven’t noticed band director Rick Catherman during the band’s halftime performance…well, you’ve been missing out. I have no idea where he gets all that energy!

Chelsea Football vs Lansing Sexton: 30 August 2013

Chelsea football opened its season at home against Lansing Sexton.

Pregame:

Do you see the smile on Coach Lindauer’s face?

That smile means FOOTBALL.

Last year the banner was facing the crowd, so the players were running under a banner that said AESLEHC SGODLLUB. As you can see from the above photo, now the crowd is cheering for the AESLEHC SGODLLUB. #OgSgodllub

The game started with an unusual tactic: After receiving the kickoff and before running a single play, Sexton took a timeout. As we on the sideline were saying we hadn’t seen that and were wondering why on earth a coach would burn a timeout before the first play of the first game, Sexton proceeded to score an 89-yard touchdown. So…first-play timeouts for everyone! You get a timeout! You get a timeout! And YOU get a timeout!

Sexton scored again shortly after its first touchdown, but the game settled down after that and the score stayed 15-0 until late in the second quarter, when Chelsea put together a drive. On a third down deep in Sexton territory, quarterback Scott Crews took off running…

…and scored to cut Sexton’s lead to 15-7.

The weather was generally pleasant most of the evening, but with 8:46 to go in the fourth quarter the officials spotted lightning, forcing the teams to vacate the field to wait for the lightning to go bother someone else (like Dexter or whatever). The rule requires officials to suspend the game until 30 minutes after the last lightning they see. Sometimes lightning moves out of an area quickly and games are resumed before too long; other times lightning sticks around long enough that the coaches decide to finish the game on Saturday. On this strange Friday, neither was true.

We waited…and waited…and waited…and the lightning was making itself at home. The fly in the ointment was this: Sexton had to travel to Chelsea from the Lansing area — about an hour away — and understandably, they weren’t too keen on making a second trip to Chelsea on Saturday. Chelsea was open to waiting as long as necessary to resume the game, so we waited…and waited…and waited some more. Finally (FINALLY), after more than two and a half hours — the length of a typical high school football game — the officials allowed the teams to resume the game. The teams took the field to warm up at 11:32pm.

Most of the crowd had gone home by then, but a dedicated set of fans remained.

As the game resumed, I took a picture of this creature on the Chelsea sideline:

Looks friendly, don’t you think?

Before the delay, Chelsea had been wearing down the very talented but relatively thin Sexton roster. However, the delay gave Sexton plenty of rest, so shortly after the game resumed, Chelsea punted and (a few plays later) Sexton scored. Chelsea added a late touchdown to make it close, but the onside kick went out of bounds, and that was that. The game ended right around midnight.

Next game:
The Chelsea Bulldogs will face Belleville. The game will be at Belleville on Friday at 7pm.

Chelsea Fair: Demolition Derby: 20 August 2013

Tuesday night at the fair is one of three demolition derby nights. The derbies are a longstanding feature of the fair, and they tend to draw large crowds of people like me — people who enjoy watching battered old cars smash into each other. Hey, don’t judge us. It’s FUN!

The Tuesday and Wednesday night derbies are all about being the last car that can move. Or, as the longtime announcer whose tenure ended a couple years ago would have said, “TOTAL DESTRUCTION!” (Does anyone know his name? I grew up listening to his calls of the derbies, but I never knew his name.) As long as your car can move and you’re making contact with another action automobile, you’re in.

In preparation for the derby, everything that isn’t integral to the basic operation of the car is removed. You may note that you can see THROUGH this car:

The trunk lid is still there, but a whole lot of other stuff isn’t. Like the back seat, and the front passenger seat, and…

Sometimes the way cars get…uh…altered in the derby results in some fun collisions:

The back end of the car on the left was like that to some degree before the derby started, so chances are good it had run in a previous year’s derby. Cars of that era are getting hard to find, so more and more cars are being reused if possible. Others appear to be new to the derby:

Sometimes a car gets pushed up on the wall early:

That leaves the unfortunate driver to watch the rest of that heat in a car that (probably) runs fine but can’t move.

Some cars are dedicated to family or friends. This car was for grandma:

Here’s a better look:

Here’s another look at the 3277 car you saw in the second photo:

We took to calling it the ramp. The shape of its back end and and the earlier photo should make clear our reason for choosing that name.

As the cars get more and more battered, they can start losing parts. This car got its bumper hooked onto another car due to a collision:

Officials won’t stop the derby for a lot of loose parts, but when something potentially dangerous like a bumper is loose on the track, they’ll stop everyone so they can clear it. The announcer explained it by saying they’ll stop the derby if there’s a loose part that could potentially poke through a floorboard and injure a driver.

SCENERY BREAK: there was a beautiful moon Tuesday evening.

Okay, back to the vehicular violence.

Radiators seldom fare well in a derby:

For us spectators, some of the enjoyable derby moments happen when someone hits a radiator just right, or when a radiator decides it just can’t go on. There’s a loud POP and a huge cloud of steam (and usually some laughter and cheering from the crowd). Sadly, I don’t have any such photos like that in this set.

As I said, this was the first of three nights of derbies at the fair. I attended all three derbies, so be sure to come back! (Don’t worry: there will be photos of other events, too.)

Chelsea Fair Kids’ Parade: 20 August 2013

Without a doubt, one of the best events in town is the Chelsea Fair. I grew up going to the fair, and I still look forward to fair week every year.

The 76th Chelsea Community Fair kicked off on Tuesday with the kids parade.

The parade ends at the fairgrounds, where there were games for the kids to play. While the kids were waiting for the games to start, a gentleman near me noticed that a certain group of kids had full signal.

One of the games had kids searching through wood shavings for change.

Nearby was a tricycle pull.

There were sack races, too.

The fair continued through Saturday. Stay tuned for a whole bunch of photos from fair week in Chelsea!

Sounds & Sights: 15 August 2013

The final Sounds & Sights of 2013 happened on another beautiful Thursday evening. Now that I think about it, Sounds & Sights had good weather pretty much every week this year! Good job, everyone.

Trio Tumbao was on the library lawn.

CrossBow was by the courthouse. Like the North Creek Fiddlers the previous week, CrossBow had an enthusiastic set of young fans.

Yes, yes, I took photos of CrossBow, too.

Ian Stewart was in the alley.

If you look closely at this next photo, you’ll be able to see me taking the photo.

I know, it’s hard to see. Here’s a closer look:

The Dorkestra was on Middle. There were drums and dancers, too. The drums were left too close to the spectators, so a few kids decided to give them a try.

After a while the drums were taken out of public circulation. Here are the drums being played by the drummers.

Here’s the dancing.

Appleseed Collective was at the Sylvan Courtyard.

The Bluesmatics were at the Glazier Building.

Blue Seven was at the Clocktower Gazebo.

Sounds & Sights is all done for 2013, but it’ll be back next summer. In the meantime, go ahead and explore everything else Chelsea has to offer!

FOOTBALL FOOTBALL FOOTBALL: 15 August 2013

If you know ANYTHING about me, you know I am unwavering in my belief that football season is the REAL most wonderful time of the year. You probably also know I look forward to fall Friday nights all year. Well, you don’t get to Friday nights without a couple weeks of preseason practices, and Chelsea’s practices started last week. I made it out to Thursday’s practice.