CultureShift took a field trip to meet the bus drivers whose job it is to take a beating.
Shiraz Ahmed
The buses lineup for the derby at Flat Rock Speedway.
Chants fill the night air and the crowd is energized as they await Flat Rock Speedway’s Night of Destruction, where school buses take a whip around the race track.
The annual event, also known as the school bus figure-eight race, features big, colorful buses literally crashing into each other, flipping over and giving the audience one heck of a show. It’s adrenaline-pumping and exciting. Dangerous? Well, that depends on whom you ask.
“Most people would think it’s dangerous,” says Jack Franzel, a regular racer at Flat Rock. “But if you’ve been doing this your whole life, compared to what we used to do, this is like slow motion to us.”
Click the player above to hear CultureShift’s Amanda LeClaire trip down river and see photographer Shiraz Ahmed’s images below.
Shiraz Ahmed
Shiraz Ahmed
Frenzel, driver, posing in his bus (left) and with a shirt a family member gifted him. 'I've been racing my whole life, once I quit doing it on a weekly basis I kind of retired into this,' says Franzel.
Shiraz Ahmed / WDET
Shiraz Ahmed
The glass-strewn floor of one of the vehicles. "We pick them up at auctions and scrap yards. These buses are on their way to the scrap yard, we just make them last," says Franzel.
Shiraz Ahmed
The crowd at Flat Rock Speedway.
Shiraz Ahmed
Young fans at Flat Rock Speedway. Their favorite part? 'When they try to hit each other.'
Shiraz Ahmed
The bus derby begins with drivers revving their engines and pulling out of the parking zone.
Shiraz Ahmed
Franzel crashes his bus, the first hit of the night.
Amanda LeClaire is an award-winning journalist and producer of the CuriosiD podcast for 101.9 WDET-FM Detroit’s NPR station. She served as the host of WDET's now discontinued program CultureShift, was a founding producer of WDET’s flagship news talk show Detroit Today, and a former host/reporter for Arizona Public Media. Amanda is also an artist, certified intuitive and energy healer, and professional tarot reader.
Shiraz Ahmed served as Digital and Audience Engagement Editor for 101.9 WDET from 2019-2020. His favorite salsa is Marco’s Mexican salsa, a now-defunct chain that produced the salsa of his childhood.
