Local family hopes to crush the competition at Wasatch County Demolition Derby

Heber City native Spencer Jacobsen has experienced it all while driving in the Wasatch County Demolition Derby. He’s bailed out of a burning vehicle, been hit so hard he’s heard bells ringing and, after turning a corner too fast, rolled his car a complete 360 degrees and just kept on driving.

Spencer has been competing since he was 17. Attending the derby with his dad and two older brothers was a childhood tradition. His brothers also competed but have since grown out of it.

“They got smart and quit. I’m going on 23 years,” Spencer said.

Spencer is carrying on the family tradition by teaching his son and nephews, aged 13 to 16, how to build cars to wreck in the derby. The Jacobsens will be competing in the youth categories during the 49th annual event taking place July 23-25.

The boys have all competed in the derby at least once before. It will be the fourth derby for Spencer’s 16-year-old nephew, Alex Jacobsen.

Alex will drive a car he initially bought on KSL Classifieds for $300. During five months of working on it in Spencer’s garage, he’s added about $900 worth of parts while stripping the interior.

“We take out everything, plastic, foam, flammable, glass, anything that could hurt you. And then, you put in a roll cage for protection,” Alex explained. “Then, you put an intake on it so that it works better and doesn’t break. You add bumpers, and you get skid steer tires for the back for extra grip and then weld the doors with little plates.”

Cars are regulated by a 20-page rulebook and carefully inspected before the competition, explained derby organizer Brad Bowman. As for the driving, there are almost no rules, except that hitting a driver’s door is strictly off-limits.

The goal is to be the last car standing, but Alex has a much different objective this year. He wants to be crowned the most aggressive driver, or the MAD Dog. 

“We just put the pedal to the metal and go hit who’s in front of us,” he said.

What keeps Alex competing is the adrenaline, the deafening roars of engines and pure, unadulterated destruction. Demolition derbies, he said, are an excellent way to “get rage out.”

There are two youth categories, one for drivers aged 12 to 15 and another for drivers aged 16 to 17. 

Across the eight categories, winners will take home a combined $200,000 generated from sponsors and ticket sales. But the youth competitions are especially fun to watch because most of the kids are in it for the chaos, not the money, Spencer said.

There was no youth category when Spencer was growing up. Bowman said it was added in recent years because the sport is “dying” among younger generations. In fact, the Wasatch County Demolition Derby was almost cancelled in 2016 due to lack of competitors. 

“Young kids just don’t work on cars anymore,” he said. “If we don’t get the kids involved at a young age, they most likely won’t get involved at all.”

Teaching kids to work on cars is an excellent way to instill a “mechanical mindset,” Spencer said. 

“Last year, I put so much more work into the cars than I have this year because they’ve become more self-sufficient,” he said. “Once you learn these little skills of being able to figure things out and look at it and make things work from guesswork, little by little, it becomes second nature.”

Cache Jacobsen, Alex’s 14-year-old brother, is currently taking welding classes at Wasatch High School and hopes to open a car repair shop one day. He said he’s not in the demolition derby for the adrenaline, but the friendships forged while working on cars in Spencer’s garage.

“They don’t even realize how nice they have it having the shop here,” Spencer said. “They’ve got tire air compressors, welders, a frame bender, all these things. Most people are out there in the sun under a lean-to, baking.”

That’s not to say the boys haven’t been feeling the summer heat. The six of them emptied a fridge full of several 24-packs of Gatorade, Bodyarmor and soda in a day. 

While their parents have helped keep the fridge stocked, the boys have been ravenous. On the day of the competition, however, they usually don’t eat anything at all due to nerves. 

Spencer said that feeling never goes away. 

“Every time my wife is driving, I’m more scared than she is, probably. And it’s not that I’m scared she’s going to get hurt. It’s just the nerves. You want them to succeed,” he said.

But for now, the boys “all talk the big talk,” Spencer said. A few of them have spray-painted messages on their bumpers like, “Drive it like I stole it.”

While the car in question was legally obtained, the boys have had one run-in with the law. Namely, Cache took his car for a test drive in the neighborhood and was instantly caught by a cop.

Demolition derby cars are not street legal, and Cache does not have a driver’s license. Making matters worse, the cop happened to be his cousin.

“He wasn’t mad, but he wasn’t happy,” Cache said, eliciting laughter from his friends.

But Cache’s little incident pales in comparison to the time his uncle Spencer burned down his parents’ barn 13 years ago. 

“We were working on a car. My parents were on vacation. The car caught on fire, and we burned everything,” he said. “They start getting phone calls from the neighbors saying, ‘How can we help?’ And my dad was like, ‘What do you mean?’ They’re like, ‘Your barn’s on fire!’ Let’s just say they started calling me. I screened them.”

After the fire claimed both the barn and his car, Spencer swore off the demolition derby. But fellow competitors weren’t going to let him quit so easily. Bowman rallied derby drivers from across Utah to purchase Spencer a new trailer, car and parts.

“When I was done, caught myself selling out and quitting, Brad and the whole community picked me up and pushed me along,” Spencer said. “I don’t know if you’d call that a brotherhood, but it is.”

The Wasatch County Demolition Derby takes place 7 to 10 p.m. July 23-25, at the Wasatch County Event Complex. Purchase tickets and learn more at tinyurl.com/bdzxvjdy.