The Carbon County Fair held a demolition derby and a junk car race in the arena Wednesday nightwhich drew quite a crowd of parents, family, friends and spectators to see the action.

Tim Strohl of Paul's Garage in Palmerton coordinated the event. There were two junk car heats, a youth demolition derby for ages 12-15 and lastly a feature junk car race for the cars that survived the two heats. There were monetary prizes in each round.Caylieb Stanton, 13, came all the way with his family from Walton, New York. His dad did a lot of derbies and he has grown up watching them."He loves it and finally got a chance to do it," said his mother.A majority of the participants came from Palmerton and Lehighton with one from Easton, one from Lake Wallenpaupack and a couple from New Jersey and New York.Dennis and Gayle Koropchak came from there to watch their friend's daughter Leigha Welsh, 13, of Honesdale.Welsh got her car from Kellam's Garage in Honesdale. Her brother, who is in the Air Force and who also did demolition derbies, was her inspiration."I'm excited and nervous at the same time," Welsh said. She also races go-karts at Snydersville Raceway.A lot of cars were donated from local garages in the area of Snyder Tire in Lehighton.The youth demolition derby followed the junk car heats.Welsh was doing very well for almost the whole race, ending up in a head to head with Tanner Strohl, who ended up winning the derby. Welsh ended in second place after a valiant attempt to make her car start, after Strohl hit her for the final time, winning the race."She definitely has some guts to go out there with those guys. I couldn't do that," said Kayleigh Snyder, 14, of Palmerton.Strohl won the derby last year when his car also ended up catching on fire. He did not get hurt."It was up and down to win two years in a row. It didn't look like I would win, but luck went my way," Strohl said.He attributes his win to his father, who helped him get his car ready.Finally, the junk car feature race, which was 40 laps long, included the cars from the first two heats that were still running.Near the end the cars were smoking a significant amount, falling apart, spinning out, and many even began to get stuck to each other and were running in to each other.On the 26th lap, Bob Snyder's engine caught on fire. He quickly jumped out of the car, the race got a red flag to stop, but got a green flag to start once the fire was out. Snyder's car was falling apart before the fire, with his bumper hanging off the back. Cody Geist won the feature race and was awarded $400.