photo by: Nick Krug

Shelby Miller, winner of the 2016 Douglas County Fair Demolition Derby is pictured on her nearly unrecognizable, 1974 Pontiac Bonneville two-door derby car on Friday, Aug. 12, 2016. In her fifth derby appearance, Miller was able to secure victory as the first female winner of the Douglas County derby.

Shelby Miller is a bit envious of her brother’s first name.

She is the firstborn of Doug and Kay Miller’s three children, yet brother Derby was given the name associated with the family’s passion for demolition derbies.

“Having a girl named Derby might not work,” Miller admitted. “People call me Crash, anyway, especially at work.”

This year in Douglas County, she could be called Champ. Miller won the annual demolition derby July 30 at the Douglas County Fair, outlasting her second-place finishing brother and becoming the first woman to win the crown.

“It’s a family thing,” she said. “My dad actually ran the entire time I was growing up. Mom used to run, too. I can’t even tell you how many cars they went through — a ton.

“My younger sister, Samie Milligan, did it once. I actually met my boyfriend at a derby. If there was a reality-type show for this, we would sure be a candidate.”

With that lineage, it was probably inevitable that Miller would get strapped behind the wheel of a derby car. What wasn’t so predictable was the joy it gives her.

“It’s so hard to explain,” she said. “Once you try it, you’re hooked. It’s an adrenaline rush. There’s more to it than you think.”

Her derby strategy is to be patient and take good shots, mostly with the rear of her car to avoid damage to her radiator or engine, Miller said.

The speed at which cars can go on the derby track depends on conditions — mud slows everyone down — and size, Miller said. The track at the Douglas County Fairgrounds is large, allowing drivers to get up to 30 mph before plowing into competitors.

“I’ve seen stars sometimes,” she said. “The worst ones are when you don’t see them coming. I’ve never been hurt in a derby. We wear helmets. You get hurt worse building the cars than driving them.”

Preparation is the key to a demolition derby, and Miller has a genetic edge in that area, too. Her father once ran his own auto repair shop after taking it over from her grandfather. For this year’s fair, she made over a 1974 Pontiac Bonneville that had sat for years in a field of the family’s farmstead south of Lawrence.

“There were no floorboards in it,” she said. “They had rusted through. We had to weld pieces of metal in there so I didn’t fall through the floor. It was past restoring. It was going to the scrap yard anyway.”

The Pontiac was without the V-8 motor it had when it left the assembly line more than 40 years ago. That was OK, Shelby said, because she dropped into her winning entry a small-block Chevrolet V-8 and transmission of the kind the family runs in derby cars. She also had to switch out the drive shaft, which set her back $500.

“It’s not a hobby you can make money on,” she said. “Winning helps.”

Car preparation would normally take about one week of long hours, Miller said. However, her schedule has been full this summer, as she has been working a full-time job at Bayer Animal Health in Shawnee and is completing her master’s in bioveterinary medicine at Kansas State University’s Olathe campus. The need to complete her thesis prevented her from competing at this weekend’s Osage County Fair’s demolition derby in Overbrook, she said.

“My brother is a heavy-equipment mechanic,” she said. “I’m a bit of an oddball with the biology (interest). I grew up on a farm with cattle and horses. It’s something I’m passionate about. I’ve always done mechanic stuff on the side. I didn’t figure I could make a career out of that.”

Her father has moved on from auto repair, too. He now works in maintenance at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. He competed in more than 100 derbies in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas after his older brother, Duane, introduced him to the sport, Doug Miller said.

“At the time I was working in auto repair,” he said. “Going out and crashing cars took out my frustration on cars. I met a lot of nice people.”

Of the large 1970s and 1980s family cars that are sought for derbies, Doug Miller favored Chrysler Imperials and General Motors station wagons.

Although he never took one to a derby, another favorite car is one that looks good and goes fast.

“I named my daughter after Shelby Mustangs,” he said. “You wouldn’t enter one of them in a demolition derby, but they’re great cars.”