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Greenville's Shannon Rader (509) looks to eliminate his final
competitor during competition at the
2015 fair demolition derby. CNO
Photo by Dylan Knoop
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Rader Takes
Double Win
Fair Ends With a Bang
By Dylan Knoop
GREENVILLE- You should always expect the unexpected, especially in a
demolition derby.
Smash It Demolition Derby was back again to entertain the crowd
Saturday night at the 2015 Great Darke County Fair. With over 100
entries spread across 7 classes, from the kids and the power wheels to
the lawn mowers and cars, it was destined to be a great showing.
Through the night, mud was flung high and into the infield stands,
mowers flipped over, cars came over walls, and even the occasional fire
under the hood brought the crowd to its feet. But there were two
individual competitors that really came to put on a show of their own.
Some people may not see the lawnmower derbies as exciting or as
competitive as others, but one man took his competitiveness to a new
level. Greenville’s Shannon Rader had an entry in the stock mower
class, in which he took the win. In a shocking announcement to
the crowd, he kept his stock lawn mower on the track and participated
in the modified mower derby. The same mower, two different
classes, but most of all, Rader came away with the win in both classes.
"I knew this mower was actually built for the stock rules,” said Rader.
“I knew I could withstand the modified boys."
With Rader's experience, he has also been known to have gutsy ambition
as well. Something that he used in his favor.
"I've run with the modified guys a couple times before, so I knew if
nothing was broke then I was going back for the modifieds,” Rader
stated.
Although Rader made it to win, he had a huge disadvantage against his
other competitors.
"The goal is to try and break them down so I wanted him to back up as
far as he could, just go heads up and get him from the sides because
his front wheels versus mine, his front wheels are protected, so mines
not, so basically go heads up with him and that he burns a belt or
break something underneath," Rader pointed out.
Rader stuck to that strategy the entire time. Both mowers were so
strong that a time limit had to be set in place and if neither of them
had dropped out, the prize money would have been split.
With three minutes to go, the competition started to back down.
"It's pretty much hands down whenever the other guy was smoking because
I knew that he was getting smoke on his belt so I knew it wasn't gonna
be long till he was out."
At the end of the night, Rader went home with two mower victories and a
top five finish in the mild weld car class. The other big
performer was Greenville’s Tom Dillman, winning the mild weld class two
years in a row. Tom could not be reached for an interview.
That wrapped up another night of demolition derbies and another
successful year to The Great Darke County Fair.
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