Wednesday night was the second night of the demolition derby. It also happened to be a day of spectacular weather. When I arrived to stake out my spot, there were  beautiful storm clouds just past the fairgrounds.

Unfortunately for all of us spectators waiting for the derby to start, those weren’t the last storm clouds in the sky. Not long after I took that photo, the sky got angrier than Brian Kelly after another Notre Dame turnover. The result was a downpour accompanied by uncomfortably close lightning strikes and deafening thunder.

After taking shelter and enduring the storm, we were treated to more gorgeous clouds.

After a delay to let the storm pass, the derby started. It was a little muddier than usual thanks to the deluge, but it was still plenty of fun.

After a couple heats, yet another intense storm began to move into the area. For a while we were just past the edge of the storm, and the frequent flashes of lightning provided a spectacular backdrop for the derby. The following is one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken, and it came courtesy of the fisheye lens I’d bought just a few days earlier.

A few minutes after I took that photo, the lightning strikes again became uncomfortably close, so I decided it was time to head to my car. This turned out to be wise: just as I reached my car, the heavens opened up yet again. I sat in my car for about fifteen minutes listening to the rain pelt my car and watching the lightning flash directly overhead with astounding frequency. To put my time to good use, I shot more photos through my windshield with my fisheye lens. These weren’t nearly as good as the above photo, but they’re still worth posting.

Sometimes the lightning was behind the clouds, making for eerie photos…

…and sometimes it was front and center.

When the rain let up a little bit, I headed home. But while the rain stopped by the time I got home, the divine fireworks were still going strong. When I arrived home, the lightning was over the field behind my house, so I spent a few more minutes getting photos of the remarkable storm. This was the best of the bunch:

Neither one of those light sources is the moon. Was it a ridiculous display of lightning? Yeah, it was ridiculous.