BUCYRUS — Motorsports are in Justin Morgan’s blood.
The Bucyrus man, a regular on the demolition derby circuit, will test his skills again when he competes at the Crawford County Fair on Saturday. But this year, other Morgan family members will be sitting in the driver’s seats, too — all ramming into each other on a dirt track at the grandstand.
“I just do it for fun,” said Morgan, a full-time mechanic at the Motor Ranch in town who also travels to Seneca and Sandusky counties to race. “It gets kinda hectic out there. If you have sight of someone to go after, then someone hits you on the side and you never even see them coming.”
Morgan, who drives a 1996 Ford Escort, will be joined by his sister, Jennifer Kaiser, who is making her derby debut, along with her husband, Jason Good, and son, Kaleb Kaiser. Rounding out the team are close family friends Justin Scenters and Derek Rieles.
Scenters, who has been racing since he was 18, is dedicating his 1997 black Escort to his four children and late grandfather, Walter “Bud” Hill, a P.O.W. and M.I.A. who over the years competed in and promoted the demolition derby as “B.J. and the Crew.”
“I always wanted to do a race after him and this year I decided to do it,” said Scenters, who has finished second and third in previous derbies.
This time he’s competing in the windshield car category, but has entered a variety of classes, from compact cars to full-size trucks.
Jennifer Kaiser, who is driving a 2004 white Taurus, admitted she’s a bit nervous knowing she’ll be facing a field of predominantly male drivers.
“We know that we’re a target when we first go in,” she said. “For some reason, the guys like to go after the girls first.”
A volunteer firefighter and EMT, Kaiser and her mechanic brother fixed up her car and painted it in a suicide prevention theme to call attention to the tragedy that is plaguing families of young and old alike. She lettered “No story should end too soon” on the trunk of car 139.
Also hitting the track for the first time are Kaleb Kaiser in car K95, and Good, who is driving No. 127, a 2003 Ford Focus. They are dedicating their vehicles to Batten Disease and support for firefighters and EMT’s, while Rieles is promoting breast cancer awareness.
Morgan, whose frame broke off in last year’s event, said he started welding the vehicle shortly after pulling it out of the fairgrounds. He has added a “cage” to the gutted interior, a massive steel bumper and 14-inch tractor tires for better traction, especially if the course is muddy.
Morgan’s Ford, which he works on in a 30-by-34-foot garage on East Rensselaer St., is the only one in the entourage without a windshield or glass. He’s dedicating the auto to longtime friend and derby fan Rick Bryant of Tiffin, who died in March 2019.
Morgan, always a wrench in hand, has swapped out the tires on all six clunkers and added spare tires in the back so they “hold it to the floor.” He’s also cut out 12 x 12-inch holes in the hoods to accommodate the “header” or protruding exhaust pipe, spending thousands of dollars on modifications.
But crashing beat-up cars in competitions is Morgan’s passion. Others joke it’s his therapy.
“It’s a lot of money to throw away for fun, but there are worse things,” he admitted. “We just try to buy a car, run it and stick to the same thing each time.”