Imagine the humble school bus. Now imagine one has been decommissioned due to wear and tear or high mileage. Now imagine that same bus careering around a racetrack, barreling into anything in its path.
School bus racing is a cherished pastime in the town of Bithlo — located in Florida east of Orlando, population 5,000 — and the subject of the documentary "Smash," which screens next week at the ArcLight.
"I had no idea that anything of this magnitude even existed," director Kevin Burroughs told me. "I went to college in Orlando at the University of Central Florida, so a lot of my friends knew about these crazy school bus races. I never went until after college and when I saw it I thought, 'Well, this is unbelievable.'"
At the Orlando Speed World Dragway, the buses race in a biannual event called Crash-a-rama. It looks like madness — and a ticket to the emergency room, if not the morgue. Amazingly, no one Burroughs filmed suffered injuries. Guys (and it is exclusively guys who drive in these bus races) wear helmets and seat belts, but that's it as far as safety precautions.
Why are more people not getting hurt? The buses are so big, they function like a tank. "It's a testament to these bus manufacturers that they can completely T-bone and roll, and a lap belt is enough to keep the driver in and uninjured," Burroughs said. He's heard stories, though. Of broken arms or broken hands. At another speedway, years ago, a driver was killed after wrecking his bus; he tried to walk off the track midrace and didn't see another bus headed directly for him.
The danger element isn't something the drivers talk about much, except one who tells Burroughs, "I don't know if it's fear or adrenaline or whatever, but every time I'm racing, my foot just starts shaking on the gas pedal."
The track provides the buses, and 20 or so will compete in a race, said Burroughs, who will be in Chicago for a Q-and-A after the screening. "Every race is different, but it could be anywhere from nine to 12 of them wreck out. Or overheat. So that means next time they do this, they have to go back in and completely rebuild these motors and try to reinforce them with steel and put a new radiator in."
A regular driver at the race is Chuck Rush, who is also the resident mechanic at the track. He's the guy who's hunched over the hood, helping to put these buses back together. A lot of the recycling and reusing of buses is about cost. At auction, buses can go for $4,000 to $6,000. "You can't afford to buy buses every time, so they pull buses out of their graveyard in the back of the racetrack and work on them," Burroughs said.
For a documentary like this to work, you have to become invested in the people it follows — not just the racing but the human beings involved. That comes through in the case of Rush, who everyone seems to agree is a legitimately good driver. "He would have been a Dale Earnhardt, except he wasn't found at the right time and didn't have any money," someone says.
Rush had his wedding at a demo derby and is the kind of guy who wakes up his sleeping kids by pounding a ladle on an overturned cooking pot. He is also, according to his boss, an exasperating personality. Forever wiping grease off his hands onto his shirt, a cigarette dangling from his lip, Rush is resourceful and offbeat. Whatever his flaws, he's likable and (most important for the documentary) he's memorable. "I consider myself a sophisticated redneck," he says at one point. "Well, maybe not sophisticated — educated redneck."
The track where Rush works doesn't make a lot of money, Burroughs said. "So to generate some revenue they drummed up this idea to do Crash-a-rama, which is a night of silly races. School buses, but also a boat trailer race — cars pull boats on trailers. They have the camper trailer race, where they pull trailers in a race."
But the bus races seem to tap into something unique. It just looks wrong to see school buses — vehicles that usually transport kids — ramming into each other.
It's amazing the things we do to entertain ourselves, I said. "Oh, it's absolute absurdity and carnage," Burroughs said, "but that is exactly what it's meant to do — it's so entertaining. And they fill the stands. The track will make their numbers for the year in one night. So then it doesn't matter what the weekend racers bring in the rest the year."
"Smash" screens at 8 p.m. Thursday at ArcLight Cinemas, 1500 N. Clybourn Ave., with director Kevin Burroughs in attendance. Go to www.arclightcinemas.com/movie/arclight-presentssmash.
