Fri, Jan 09 2009
| Breaking News: January 08, 2009 02:56 pm |
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Published August 08, 2008 01:33 am - JEFFERSON — James Griffith doesn’t get nervous for demolition derbies anymore. After all, he’s been crashing cars for the past 22 years. An Adam Raeder column: Following in the footsteps... Josh Griffith grew up at the demo derby, so being involved in his first comes naturally ADAM RAEDER Star Beacon JEFFERSON — James Griffith doesn’t get nervous for demolition derbies anymore. After all, he’s been crashing cars for the past 22 years.
But this time is different. Before the flag drops on this one — the third heat of Thursday’s derby at the Ashtabula County Fair — the nerves are written all over Griffith’s face. The cause for those nerves sat behind the wheel of the No. 16 car, parked three cars in on the far side, waiting to gun his engine. His hat clutched tightly in his hand, Griffith leads over the concert barrier that surrounds the pit and gives the driver a thumb’s up. This isn’t another derby. That’s his son out there. “I’ll be the loudest one out there,” Griffith said before his son, Josh, spun his wheels in his first derby. “I’ll be going, ‘Watch out, Josh.’ You’ll hear me over the motors.” With the amount unmuffled horsepower packed into the pit, Griffith’s promise was hardly a small feat. Of course, Josh had nerves of his own. At 16, he’d just cleared the minimum age — by a matter of weeks. “I’m a little nervous,” he confessed. “Excited, though.” In his eyes, it was merely a coming of age. A ritual as basic and preordained as a first kiss. “My dad’s been doing it since he was 18. I’ve been here (watching demolition derbies) my whole life,” the Ashtabula native said. “There was no: Am I going to do it? It’s: I got to find a car.” And find a car he did. Though it hardly inspired confidence for any doting mothers fretting away in the grandstand — with an old couch cushion providing his protection on the driver’s-side door and the gas tank ominously exposed right behind his seat. (“If a fire breaks out, I’ll be running over there with my own fire extinguisher,” James confessed. “We’re excited and scared.” And that was before he witnessed two cars catch on fire prior to his son’s heat.) It was a rusting silver chariot of pride for Josh. “I did everything but the wiring. My dad did that,” he said. He also gave him plenty of advice. 
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