I'll never forget the first time I became aware of the demolition derby.
I had read about it sometime during my grade-school years, in one of the books I had ordered from Scholastic. You remember Scholastic, right? You'd check the boxes on the order cards for copies of "Huckleberry Finn" and novelizations of movies like "Benji" and "My Bodyguard," and then sneak on a couple of marginally educational photo books like "Custom Van Madness" or "Drag Bikes Across the USA." Then you'd wait a few weeks for your pile of books to arrive, and then try to get them all home without "losing" any.
It was one of those books that turned me on to people in old cars crashing into each other for fun. Although I've still never seen one up close, someday I'm gonna organize a road trip to the heartland to check one out. Seriously.