82-year-old Kansas City-area man may be the nation’s oldest demolition derby driver
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With number 40 spray painted in orange on his brown 1963 Ford, Ron Pine smashes, crashes and weaves through clouds of smoke in the demolition derby at the 161st edition of the Platte County Fair.
Here’s the kicker. Pine is 82 years old.
That makes him, at the very least, one of the oldest derby drivers in the country.
Maybe the oldest.
“I think everybody wants to get in the car now and then and just smash something.,” Pine says.
This year, he competed in the 50 and older stock car class. The age difference between him and the youngest driver in a youth division heat a few minutes earlier? 72 years.
Clearly, demolition derby driving isn’t for the faint of heart. Things can get pretty rough. So rough that his family doesn’t fully support Pine’s decision to keep participating in them.
When he’s not grinding gears, the octogenarian still puts in 35 hours a week at his barber shop in downtown Platte City. He opened it in the early 1960s—so long ago that kids whose hair he cut back then have reached retirement age.
The difference between barbering and demolition derbies is pretty simple, he chuckles. “I don’t hit too many people in the barber shop.”
Preparing his vehicle to be pummeled is a big part of the fun for Pine. He spends about 40 hours before each race tinkering on it in his buddy Troy Jones’ garage south of Platte City.
“Everybody has their own hobbies,” Jones figures. “We might as well just play with cars and tear them up.”
The pair’s friendship dates back decades, to the days when Jones was a teenager. They’ve been working together on derby cars ever since.
In that time the Platte County Fair’s “rodeo on wheels” has grown into one of the pair’s favorite events, not to mention one of the area’s biggest.
Overflow crowds and lots of good drivers are always on hand. Pine won there in 2022.
But when race day arrived this year, so did some major issues. His car’s transmission gave out.
No worries though. Five short hours later, #40 was ready to roll. And Pine was right where he’s been so many times before—lining up alongside friends and foes boasting that they’ll take out the old guy and take home a little prize money.
Marcus Carr, a derby official with the fair, figured Pine’s chances of grabbing another trophy weren’t bad. “He knows what he’s doing. This isn’t his first rodeo!”
With dusk descending, Pine pulls on his helmet, nimbly climbs through the car window, straps on his seat belt, and drives confidently to the starting line.
His strategy? Very simple, Pine says. “You see somebody in front of you, you’d better get out of there because he’s aiming for your front end. You’ve got to protect that radiator and the front end as much as anything.”
A few minutes later, his words proved sadly prophetic. But it wasn’t an impact with another car that forced the wily veteran out of the race. His radiator blew because of a hose that wasn’t up to the job. Pine blamed himself for the error, and walked away feeling that maybe the time had finally come to hang up his helmet.
A few weeks later though, strolling down Main Street in Platte City, he quietly admits he’s starting to reconsider.
Will he back at 83? Pine ponders the question for a moment, then says, “I just hate to go out that way. We’ll have to see how I feel.”
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