The World Demolition Derby Championship was usually held in Islip, and was a three-decade-plus annual staple on "ABC's Wide World Of Sports".

Nobody has done more to preserve the artifacts and memories of Long Island's rich racing history than my friend Marty Himes. Without Marty's vision and love for the sport, all of this memorabilia would have been lost forever. He's one-of-a-kind and his tireless work will be enjoyed by countless people for generations to come.

For years, the World Demolition Derby Championship at Islip was an annual staple of ABC's "Wide World Of Sports".

BTW, most of the time, the event was shown on tape weeks later, but I thought that once in the 1970's, they did the feature race of the championships live and on a couple of other occasions, broadcast it on a same-day basis, a few hours after it took place.

My first time driving a demolition derby Nov 1973 to 1998 I was hooked at 16 yrs old

Thanks for posting!

I have pics of a DD at Islip in the early 70's.  My Dad finished 3rd in the feature
To give you an idea how good the cars/drivers were at Islip,
He had won 15 of 17 in our state that year. The two loses were when he was DQ'd because the car caught on fire.

Yes Marty, you did the right thing!!

Without a doubt!

awesome!

Track didnt close because of noise

Of course when the good ol' sturdy strong "clunkers" got used up, the newer cars weren't built so tough and the demolitions took place wa-a-a-a-ay too quickly!  It was a lot more interesting when the older cars held up so well after such a hammering.  They'd be driving around with both the hood and trunk lids sticking straight up in the air, but undaunted!!

wow! i miss this track. Larry was great

what ever happen to Dutch Miller?

What type of jerk buys a house near a track and then complains about the noise?

Who?

I think the reason people got such a kick out of these, is because they could relate to it.   I know that's what I felt - sometimes one would like to ram into dub-a** drivers, but of course you couldn't, so this was a way to vent.

So complaining about the noise that's why it closed people don't know what fun is I work for a scrap yard I'd like to finding certain cars they had good running Motors that are going to be scrapped anyway and start using them as battering rams I used an old Chrysler New Yorker 66😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Islip Speedway: where it's believed to have started. But my grandfather told me about seeing a Model T demo derby at the Nebraska State Fair in the 1930s, though he may have been remembering a game of Model T 'polo,' which usually included collisions. I'd like to know if anybody else has any information on these early proto-derbies.