When the dust settled on Sunday evening, two mighty combine harvesters stood in all their glory as axles and tires from their defeated opponents laid strewn about the dirt race track.
It took organizers and participants weeks or even months to purchase the combines, add driver safety enhancement measures and prepare them for the annual combine demolition derby at Banks Sunset Park. After an intense bout that lasted roughly five minutes, five of the seven competitors in the final round had fallen by the wayside.
Tow-mater, a rusty brown crowd favorite decorated with googly-eyes, lost a rear tire early on and was pushed out of the way by its sleeker, more modern competitors. Silver Bullet, a gray combine that rotated vigorously to smash into its opponents, also lost a tire and dropped out before the round ended.
That left The Incredible Hulk and Captain America.
The scoring system of the yearly demolition derby is not an exact science. This year's winner, determined by the volume of audience cheers, was the Hulk, driven by Jeff Duyck, the runner-up in last year's contest.
The derby capped off a weekend of events at the 79th Annual Banks BBQ at Banks Sunset Park, with all proceeds going to maintaining the park year-round. The three-day volunteer-run event included a poker tournament, a tractor pull competition, tug-of-war contests between trucks and a massive barbecue sale.
The festivities are the main fundraiser to keep the park's facilities running. The park, which is privately owned but open to the public, hosts Little League games on its baseball field, programs for the local Scouts troop, motor speed events on its raceway and countless other activities throughout the year.
Several thousand people attended this year's events, according to David Duyck, president of the Banks Sunset Park Association. (Including his cousin, who won this year's combine derby.) Spectators included lifelong Banks residents and visitors from other cities and states.
Yearly costs to keep the park running have ranged between $35,000 and $40,000 in recent years, David Duyck said. He estimated this weekend's activities raised more than that amount.
"It's this fun event," he said. "We generate the funds for the park. We get everything cleaned up here tomorrow. And in a couple of weeks, all that dead grass out there, we'll turn it green and get it ready for soccer for the kids. And that's why we're doing all of this."
The roots of the park and the annual event trace back to the years after World War II, when a group of local farmers and loggers purchased a 20-acre tract of land in the small town of Banks to create a baseball field, according to Daryl Schmidlin, a park association board member.
Schmidlin, 68, has lived in the area nearly his entire life and recalls helping at the event with his father while growing up. He has volunteered as the barbecue committee chair for the past 36 years, he said. This year, his crew prepared more than 500 pounds of beef.
"Because it's tradition," Schmidlin said when asked why he has continued volunteering for the annual event. "I don't want to be the guy that shuts it off, I guess."
Longtime Banks residents and first-time attendees from other areas joined in the festivities, ordering nachos, hot dogs, tacos, not to mention loaded plates of barbecue and plenty of alcohol. David Duyck said organizers ordered about 40 kegs of beer for the weekend.
Attendees young and old flitted between the food stands, the playground and the bleachers by the racetrack throughout the various events, with clusters of children watching the action-packed events with occasional breaks to attempt to catch T-shirts launched from a cannon into the stands.
"He had a riot," said Adrian Shane of her 4-year-old son, who has a fondness for tractors. The mother-son duo from Portland said they learned of the event last year and had blocked off the weekend for months. "He's got a little red Massey Ferguson tractor, and so he was terrorizing people on the benches and cheering."
Several residents of the area said they appreciate attending the event each year because they get to see old friends and meet new ones. Michael Lawrence, who participated in the truck pulling contest, said he enjoys the camaraderie in the friendly competitions, though he is wary of participating in the combine derby. "It's too violent," he said with a grin.