The National Anthem cued up, and the driver of the No. 00 climbed up on the dash, through a hole once protected by a windshield. He stood up straight, like the oil drum atop his jalopy's roof, labeled "Whoop A - -" in glaring yellow paint.

You get more than just a can of it at the demolition derby.

Over the pumped-up PA announcer, the crowd and five blaring, flame-spitting engines, Lowenda Allison announced that she found two pennies at Wal-Mart on Saturday. Both on heads, both lucky. Seeing as her husband Rick Allison was three heats away from sending an Oldsmobile station wagon careening towards its timely death, she wanted him to take them.

"Just having you on my side, baby, that's luck enough," Rick said, and he settled in for the first round of wrecks at the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds.

The novice derby watcher thinks a demolition driver just needs to hit the other cars hard. The novice is right. Sort of. Rick, who has derbied for nearly a decade, said you need the following the most from your derby car: a good engine, some speed, some sturdy bumpers and a good weld job.

"You gotta have a Chrysler and you gotta know how to cheat," Lowenda added.

It's an alternate universe. In the land of demolition derbies, people want a Ford Pinto.

Prior to the start of the show, Rick saw a driver cruise past in an Edsel Pacer, and pointed a greasy hand towards it.

"I want one of those!" he said. P.J. Meyer, a first-time member of his pit crew, and a demo newbie, asked why.

"That is the Imperial of small cars," he told him. "They're harder than a wedding cake. I don't know about you, but my wedding cake was hard!"

This year, he entered the chain-up division with a soccer mom wagon that predated the existence of soccer moms. He bought the Olds for $500 a couple years back, worked it back into shape and gave it to a family member -- who promptly backed it into a parked trailer.

Weeds and cobwebs overtook it on the Allison family property in Casper, until last week, when Rick decided he wanted back in another demo derby with all his friends.

Wyoming's demolition derbiers band together like a big NASCAR family, Lowenda said. After the Casper derby, part of the Central Wyoming Fair & Rodeo, they all headed to the Sandbar to trade stories following a day of trading paint, fiberglass, transmission fluid and the like.

There, she said, they also share tips -- how to play possum, how to pop a tire, how to jimmy loose after you get bumpers hooked up. And they joke about the piles of junk they turned into more scattered piles of junk.

The Allisons put a week into the wagon, including the part where nephews and kids tried to punch windows out of the car, leaving their knuckles bruised and bloodied.

"We call it the Family Project," Lowenda said.

They threw new springs on it, and a new radiator. They tore out the interior. They replaced the water pump and changed the carburetor -- twice.

Number 77, complete with family names spray-painted onto the paneling, pulled into the Central Wyoming Fairgrounds at 2:30 p.m. At 5:09 p.m., the PA announcer counted down from five, and the 13 chain-up cars peeled out in the mud.

Rick started slow -- "You gotta drive it smart," he says -- and picked his fights. He emerged from a five-car pileup to thwack the No. 666. He dueled with the No. 2. But then he got pinned up against one of the boundaries, and the pressure of one hit snapped his right front wheel all but off.

"Aww, his tire fell off," Mandy Meyer, P.J.'s wife, said to Lowenda. And all of a sudden, Rick was driving half of a street sweeper.

But he was still driving it. Or trying to. Amidst crowd laughter, he limped into the northwest corner with the 22 and the 50, and slogged there for an agonizing four minutes.

"Come on baby, please," he cooed to his car. Moments away from breaking off his red flag, signaling a disqualification, the Olds cranked up, and he started hitting again.

Fans cheered as he backed across the track, slamming into the No. 90 with the Olds' trunk, where grocery bags once sat.

There will be no more trips to the Albertson's in that car. The fiberglass trunk splintered and slumped to the ground. The No. 2 came back and got another shot in. Amazingly, he got two more hits in before it finally stopped.

At 5:22 p.m., Rick slapped his mangled hood, trying to get 'er to start one last time. The engine coughed one last cloud of smoke - perhaps the final puff off its last cigarette. He finished sixth, one place out of the trophies.

"That's all she had left," he told the fans at the end of the race.

The engine, the wiring, whatever still works, he said, that'll just go into the next victim.

But not just yet.

"It's Bud Light time," he said after the derby.

Contact reporter Cory Matteson at (307) 266-0589 or cory.matteson@casperstartribune.net.