Page 12 — Thursday, July 27, 2023 — The Hastings Banner
Off Road Derby is family fun at county fair
Brett Bremer
Sports Editor
Clara Keizer of Middleville said she
thought off road derbys, like the one run by
Unique Motor Sports at the Barry County
Fair Friday night, were kind of scary until
this summer.
Her big brother Logan said Clara, 10 years
old, begged to race this time around.
“Yeah, but I got really nervous and I didn’t
want to do it anymore – but I did,” Clara said.
The nerves popped up on the infield in
front of the Barry County Fair grandstand
during the drivers’ meeting and lasted
through the playing of the national anthem.
Clara got her first chance to compete during
a special family race that opened event – a
race with four Rowleys and four Keizers
around seven laps.
“I couldn’t really see anything. My gog-
gles were covered in mud,” said Clara, who
spent a little bit of time practicing operating
the vehicle in her family’s driveway in the
lead-up to the race.
If she could have seen better, she’d have
seen Logan take the checkered flag.
Chad Keizer and his wife Sarah Keizer
competed alongside their children and their
friends Matt Rowley and Keri Rowley, and
their daughters Megan Rowley and Eva Row-
ley from Hastings.
Chad started competing in demolition der-
bys and off road derbys 24 years ago, and
Matt joined in a couple years after that. Slow-
ly but surely, their wives and children got
involved too.
Sarah placed third in the powder puff fea-
ture Friday, slowed a bit late in the competi-
tion by a flat tire. She started racing 20 years
ago and also scored a trophy in the off road
derby the Tuesday of fair week.
Logan won his heat in the youth class and
had the lead on the penultimate lap of the
youth feature before getting spun around and
finishing behind the top three trophy winners.
Deagan Sanders of Hastings took that win.
Megan Rowley earned a trophy too for a
win in a powder puff heat. So, the group of
eight Rowleys and Keizers went home with
three trophies.
“Matt Rowley instigated it. He thought it’d
be cool since we’re all able to, and who
knows how long we’ll be able to. We might
as well take the opportunity,” Sarah said.
“Earlier this spring the idea was planted, and
we talked to Jim [Trolard who runs Unique
Motor Sports] and he said we could do it.”
Matt said Trolard liked the idea while they
were chatting at the Unique Motor Sports
event at the Lake Odessa Fair this summer.
Matt’s daughters ran at the Lake Odessa Fair.
“Chad [Keizer] was the reason I got into
it,” Matt said. “We haven’t missed a season
yet, well 2020 but everybody missed that.
Outside of Covid, Chad has been here every
year. Even years that I didn’t have a car he
said ‘you’ve got to do it,’ and he has given
me a car.”
“Sarah and I just loved coming and watch-
ing,” Chad said, “and one night we were up
there and we were walking out and there was
a kid I knew that I worked with who said,‘why don’t you go out there and do that?’
There was another buddy that did it.”
He’s been mostly good with the transition
to the off road derby format – which is a race
around a dirt track where bumping and
crashing are allowed. There were around
150 competitors Friday and just one heat of
demolition derby as the grand finale to the
evening’s show.
Chad likes the smashing of the derby bet-
ter, but acknowledges that the off road derby
is better for many because of how many more
years of racing a car will last. He said he was
lucky to have a demolition derby vehicle last
more than two events.
Everybody in his family was driving a
Chevy Lumina Friday. Chad and Logan have
had their current cars running through three
competitions at the Barry County Fair and
one at Lake Odessa. He said Sarah’s car has
been running derbys for at least five years.
“I didn’t have to build a fresh one this year,
so that makes it a lot easier,” Chad said.
He said it takes about two full days or two
weeks of nights to be able to get a vehicle
ready to compete in the derbys.
“You must take out the airbags. You must
have a driver’s net. The only window you can
leave in the vehicle is the front windshield.
The gas tank can either be moved into the
back of the car or be left in the stock posi-
tion,” Trolard announced to the standing
room only grandstand crowd Friday as the
Rowleys and Keizers lined up for their race.
“That is pretty much it. You have to have one
roll-over bar in the driver’s door.”
Matt and Chad agreed that things are a bit
safer now than they were in their early years
as the UMS crew got help watering down the
track to slow the course down a bit between
races. Races were run in a clockwise pattern,
always turning right, Friday. That changes upfrom event to event, but Chad said running in
that direction can limit hard collisions on the
drivers’ side of the cars.
“In those early years [of off road derby],
there was a single and then a double [jumps
on the track],” Chad said.
“But nobody doubled it but Chad though,”
Matt said.
Matt cuts grass for a living in the summer,
and the dry weather for much of June and
early July gave him plenty of time to think
about racing and to prep cars.
Eva said she stripped down her first car
and built it into a derby car with her dad’s
help. She is 15 and said her driver’s educa-
tion teacher questioned her about where
she’d picked up her driving skills when she
started class.
“It was pretty cool. That was nice. I am
glad Jim let us do this,” Eva said of the fam-
ily race.
Eva and her big sister Megan ran in a
youth race at the Lake Odessa Fair in the
summer of 2022, with Megan winning the
trophy and Eva placing second.Megan got to experience some drama Fri-
day. McKaylya-Hope Page from Allegan got
credit for the victory in their collision-filled
powder puff heat, but Megan had mostly
avoided the carnage and her supporters she
was the rightful winner of the heat.
Page said her 1999 Pontiac Grand Prix
has been doing really well. She said she
has won five trophies since starting racing
last fall, with a front end painted with
“BRCA1” in honor of her mother who had
breast cancer.
Megan and Page took the time to rest on a
hood and watch the video of their heat on a
phone and then when it was clear Megan
deserved the win Page passed off the trophy.
Page got her own trophy later on finishing
second in the powder puff feature.
Brynn Bolo of Hastings won that powder
puff feature.
Joe Morey of Middleville won the 4-cylin-
der feature and the 6-cylinder A feature
championship went to Randy Kill of Hop-
kins. Brad Hall of Carson City won the dem-
olition derby at the end of the night.Boys & Girls
(Ages 12-14)Boys & Girls
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(Ages 26 & up)Send Entries to...
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Summerfest 2023Sponsored by
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for firstfor first
100!100!SEASONAL HELP 2023
-TEMPORARY SEASONAL GENERAL LABORER-
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and some Fridays. Starting hourly pay $16.43 per hour, no benefits. Application
& job description can be picked up at the Barry County Road Commission office
located at 1725 West M-43 Highway, Hastings between 6 AM – 3:45 PM, or on
our website at http://www.barrycrc.org.The Barry County Road Commission is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
202921some wrestling technique, we went for a run
one day, and another day we did a team game
out on the soccer field. We kind of mixed in
other activities.”
There were about 30 wrestlers total who
took part in the workouts.
The mobility of the program’s new matmade the Wednesday evening competition
possible. Coach Slaughter didn’t know of
the program having a wrestling competition
on the football previously. He said the pro-
gram was supposed to have its new Dalla-
mur mat for the start of the 2022-23 high
school season, but delays meant it arrivedjust before school let out for the summer.
“Just thought it’d be a fun,” he said.
The program has had some open gym
times throughout the summer and Slaughter
expects to keep having those as student-ath-
letes ramp up for the upcoming fall sports
season.SAXONS, continued from page 9 ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
main source to raise and donate tens of thou-
sands of dollars each year so our student
athletes can have an enjoyable athletic expe-
rience. Please consider volunteering just a
few hours a school year – we are a small
group, but can make a big impact.”
Hastings High School athletic director
Mike Goggins said the boosters’ contribu-
tions are for things as small as scorebooks
and as large as scoreboards.
The Hastings Athletic Boosters have
donated more than $112,000, with the helpof a generous $15,000 private donation for a
new set of track and field hurdles, since Jan-
uary 2022.
Evans’ teams benefitted like all the others
through the years.
Evans graduated from Caledonia High
School in 1978 and then earned a Bachelor of
Arts degree in special education from Hope
College. He later earned a Masters degree in
educational leadership from Western Michi-
gan University.
He began his teaching and coaching careerat Onekama High School where assisted in
both the football and baseball programs while
also serving as the athletic director. He moved
to Manistee High School for a time where he
revived a varsity baseball program which had
been dormant for five years.
Evans and his wife Kim, a long-time teach-
er in the district, came to Hastings with their
daughter Chelsea in 1985.
Evans taught and coached at Hastings until
2022, while also working with Goggins run-
ning sporting events at the school.EVANS, continued from page 9 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
The Rowley and Keizer families gather with their trophies after the Unique Motor
Sports Off Road Derby Friday at the Barry County Fair. The two families ran a sev-
en-lap race to open the evening's grandstand show. Pictured are (from left) Clara
Keizer, Chad Keizer, Sarah Keizer, Logan Keizer, Eva Rowley, Matt Rowley, Keri
Rowley and Megan Rowley.Keri Rowley (left) and Clara Keizer race their cars in the Keizer/Rowley family race
at the start of the Unique Motor Sports Off Road Derby Friday at the Barry County Fair
grandstand. (Photo by Brett Bremer)Megan Rowley (left) and McKaylya-Hope Page go over the video of their powder
puff heat in the pits Friday night during the Unique Motor Sports Off Road Derby at the
Barry County Fair. (Photo by Brett Bremer)A muddy Eva Rowley gets ready for
the youth feature Friday during the
Unique Motor Sports Off Road Derby at
the Barry County Fair. (Photo by Brett
Bremer)