The Fort Benton Summer Celebration lineup will feature a major addition this year: The Summer Celebration Slam. The Slam is a demolition derby organized by Eric Tadej. Registration is open for drivers, with 50 available slots for the main class. With a total purse of $40,000, those slots will fill up fast. "We opened registration on Sunday to 50 cars for the main class and basically right when I opened registration people started calling to register and pay paling. I got five guys registered out of Canada, three out of North Dakota, and the rest are Montana guys. I have 21 people signed up and 20 to 30 people saying: 'Yeah, just wait till my paycheck comes in,'" explained Eric regarding the initial response to the event.
The main class isn't the only event to be featured, nor is it the only one that is drawing competition. "I'm at 21 for the main class, 6 for the 80s or newer class, and 3 for the minivan heat. It's actually called a man-van heat, so you can run little pickups, like Ford Rangers, S-10s, SUVs, and minivans."
Tadej is hoping that the turnout for the Summer Celebration will mean larger crowds in the grandstands. In turn, he is hoping to boost the Summer Celebration by attracting people from outside the community: "The start time is 2 on Saturday, the 25th. My hope is to get it over and done with before the street dance and fireworks. I want to do tech for the cars from 8 to midnight on Friday. As soon as you get your car done, I'm gonna say: Hey there is a street dance downtown, there's food, and tell everyone to go spend money." Ideally, the two events will feed each other. The Beer Garden will be open for the event, and there will be a food truck providing concessions for the crowd.
Tadej is putting on the whole event himself. "It'll only be me. This is basically a stand alone event, so the fair won't have anything to do with it. It's my own thing," Eric explained. The goal is for the associated costs to be covered by the event itself: "It'll be an all-inclusive deal. I'll get money off of grandstands, money off of entry fees, and basically all that money is going right back in." Eric is planning on covering the large purse and the expenses associated with the event with the registration fees and the grandstand income: "JC with the fair board told me that they had 900 people at the fair. They charged $20 a person, so, based on there being so many people in town for the celebration, I put this at 1000, guessing on the low end. I am hoping more people show up, but we will see."
The Summer Celebration Slam isn't Eric's first foray into the the world of organizing demolition derbies. He was the organizer/promoter responsible for the changes to the County Fair "Mayhem on the Mighty Mo" in 2021. Those changes resulted in a significantly stronger turnout in terms of drivers and attendance of the event. "I haven't had any complaints about it, and the fair board is super happy. So, it must've gone pretty well." Eric explained the events that led up to his role in promoting the 2021 derby: "We went to a meeting for the fair, it was the beginning of 2020, right before the pandemic thing took off. We had a meeting and they wanted to make changes because they were tired of having only 10 cars show up. They asked 'What needs to change?' I raised my hand and said 'I'll put it on. I'll promote it. I'll get the sponsors. I'll come up with a purse, and we'll get a bunch of money. We'll come up with a Facebook page and give it a name.'" Tadej explained that his involvement in the demolition derby community since 2004 as a driver, coupled with his travels to 7 different states have resulted in his intimate knowledge of what works and what doesn't. In addition, he explained: "I've got contacts for people from Kansas, Wyoming, Nevada, North Dakota, Montana, Utah... I know people from all over. I said 'I can get this thing to just take off.' And everyone in the room was like: 'Well if you want to do that, go ahead.' I went to work on it right away, and they ended up canceling it in 2020. Then I started back to work on it and didn't get an answer right away and about a month and a half before the show they said: 'Yeah
let's do it.' So I had to scramble and get all the sponsors and a nice purse and try to get all the cars to show up in two months or a month and a half. It ended up working out. The crowd was packed. Everyone seemed to like the track. I just did everything a little different."
One of the major differences between the Summer Celebration Slam and the Mayhem on the Mighty Mo event is the weekend on which they will be taking place. The County Fair event typically takes place on a weekend that features several large events around the state. This tends to split up the drivers, resulting in a smaller number of participants. Tadej was able to overcome that obstacle in 2021. For the Slam, there is only one other event currently planned for the same weekend, which is a derby in Dillon, MT. This means that there is less competition for drivers. With the main prize in the Slam set at $10,000, it is likely that the event will draw quite a few drivers from the surrounding states. Eric encouraged the Dillon organizers to move their event to the following day with the promise of promoting their event to drivers at the Slam.
Tadej hopes to make the Summer Celebration Slam an annual event. It's important for locals to enter and attend the Summer Celebration Slam, as support will make it possible for events like these to happen more often. Local driver, Casten Heppner, has already signed up for the event.
If you would like to enter the derby, have questions for Eric, or want to learn more about the event you can reach him through the Summer Celebration Slam Demolition Derby Facebook page.
