Demo-driving family members honor patriarch in smashing fashion - Buffalo News
Stacey Haniszewski drove – and won – her first demolition derby 10 years ago at age 16. Her grandfather Ed, sick with throat cancer and unable to speak, couldn’t tell her how proud he was, but gave her a thumbs up and a smile. “I have a picture of him shaking my hand in front of one of my cars that he helped me paint red, white and blue, and he had tears in his eyes,” she said. It was her grandfather, Ed Haniszewski, owner of Ed’s Auto Parts in Lancaster, who started the family tradition of driving demo. Sunday, which would have been Ed’s birthday, Stacey and 15 of her cousins, uncles and friends, carried on the tradition and drove the demo in Ed Haniszewski’s honor. Even Stacey’s father, Paul, came out of retirement for one last round at the crowd-pleasing event that caps off the last day of the Erie County Fair. Drivers crash old beat-up cars into one another until just three are left running. Paul Haniszewski doesn’t enjoy the derby like he did back in the old-school, “heavy-metal” days, when drivers brought giant, old cars to smash instead of the newer, more compact models you tend to see today. Offer a bigger purse – say, $3,000, and let drivers keep their cars once they’re done instead of requiring them to be handed over at the race’s end. “People like to watch the old cars better, but you see the newer cars because they’re cheaper,” Froebel said. Source: www.buffalonews.com
