Finishing in third place last August at the Tooele County Fair Demolition Derby was a superb feat for Grantsville’s Cuyler Brown considering he was driving in his first demolition derby. His second derby last Saturday night turned out even better. Brown won the 2010 Deseret Peak Derby along with $2,200 and a big trophy.

“I was pretty lucky actually. It was me against three other cars. I used my car wisely and made some solid hits and didn’t make any stupid mistakes,” Brown said.

Although he was crowned the champion, Brown and several other drivers were upset at the judging and how some drivers teamed up together to focus on destroying certain cars.

“I didn’t really like the derby because of the judging,” Brown said. He plans, however, to build another car and will back to compete for the third time in his derby career at the Tooele County Fair Demolition Derby on Aug. 7.

After a night of crashing into other cars, Brown said his Oldsmobile is probably salvageable. “I might give it to somebody else and see if they can get it ready for another derby, but for the next derby we’ll build another one,” he said.

Ed Hansen finished in second place and won $1,200 while Zeb Hansen placed third and pocketed $700.

Brown also won the prize for most outrageous paint job, and Mario Sandoval’s car 2.99 won best paint job.

Cody Nielsen won both Figure 8 races while Mike Childs finished second in the two races.

Childs was the head official for inspecting cars and he said the officials at the derby wanted to keep as many cars as possible competing.

“Overall, I thought it was a great derby but the car count was down. We only had 14 derby cars and to keep the derby entertaining for the fans you don’t want to eliminate a lot cars. The Deseret Peak Complex spends a lot of money to put on the derby so you want to make it entertaining for fans and the more cars the better. There were cars that were questionable with several cars trying to push the rules. The drivers are just in it for the money and that’s the problem. If all the cars followed the rules we could have a good, fun derby. I know there were some angry people Saturday night,” Childs said.

“As judges we’re not perfect and sometimes we miss things,” he added.

Driver Mike Evans said the judging was horrible and that some of the judges favor certain teams and individuals.

“It was terrible; it was the worst derby I’ve ever been to with the judges favoring certain drivers and the team driving was ridiculous,” Evans said. “They tell half the drivers one thing and the other half something else with nobody on the same page.”

The action in the first demolition derby heat was somewhat slow paced, but did include one car sliding underneath another car. The second heat was extremely aggressive with cars moving at a faster pace which resulted in some big crashes. Zeb Hansen won “most aggressive driver” in the second heat. Figure 8 action was fast and furious with Child’s car flipping over on its top. The vehicle was soon back racing though when several men came into the arena and flipped it back on its wheels. A second car also flipped over on its top during the Figure 8, but after the flop it could not continue and had to be lifted out of the arena by a giant forklift.

The second demolition derby of the summer season is part of the Tooele County Fair and the crowd is usually bigger for that derby. Payoffs for the winners are definitely larger with the first-place driver earning $2,700, second place $1,700 and third place $1,000.

Mark Watson: mwatson@tooeletranscript.com