Scrapefest attracts car-show crowds to Farmington over weekend
An example of a "stanced" vehicle. These lowered and modified cars were featured at Scrapefest on Sunday, March 19, at the Legacy Events Center in Farmington.
FARMINGTON — This must be what it feels like to cross the finish line at the Tour de France.
On Sunday evening my wife and I were returning from riding bicycles on the old Denver & Rio Grande Western Rail Trail in southern Davis County. We reached Clark Lane — which runs between the Legacy Events Center and Station Park — just as what appeared to be some sort of car show was breaking up at the Legacy center. There was a clot of a couple of hundred people standing on both sides of the road.
As my wife and I rode our bikes through the middle of this mass, the crowd cheered, some holding out their hands in an attempt to give us high fives. A few called out to us; it took a moment to realize they were shouting “Spin your wheels!”
Whatever it was, they were all having a pretty good time.
When we got home, I looked it up on the internet. Turns out, we caught the tail end of something called Scrapefest.
On Monday morning I contacted Joseph Deutsch, who runs Scrapefest with his partner, Kara Parks. In an interview conducted via the Facebook messaging function, Deutsch said that he and a few friends wanted to put on a show that focused on “stance.”
Deutsch says you can’t really describe stance because there are too many different types. But Wikipedia defines it as customizing a car by lowering its ride height (not to be confused with a lowrider), using larger rims and “stretched” tires, and adjusting the camber on the wheels. UrbanDictionary.com says stance is “a common trend and style impersonated on drift and show cars alike, originating from the older Japanese domestic market.”
The Scrapefest name comes from the car group Deutsch belongs to — the Salt Scrapers. The first Scrapefest show was held in 2014 at a nightclub in Sandy; it attracted 50 to 60 vehicles and 150 to 200 people, according to Deutsch. The next year it was moved to Farmington’s Legacy Events Center, and in 2016 organizers held both a Scrapefest Season Opener and a Scrapefest Season Closer at the Davis County venue.
Deutsch estimates the total crowd for Sunday’s 2017 Scrapefest Season Opener at between 3,500 and 4,000 people. In addition to the 350 to 400 vehicles on display, there were vendor and sponsor booths, a raffle, and “car limbo.”
In car limbo, vehicles take turns passing under a bar that is gradually lowered. Winner is the car that can pass under the lowest bar.
“And people are welcome to pack into cars and on top of them” to lower them even more, Deutsch said. “As long as they don’t touch the bar it’s fair game.”
The Scrapefest Season Closer event is planned for Aug. 26 at Legacy Events Center.
Deutsch said Sunday’s show featured more than 350 cars in the paid “VIP section” but plenty more in the unofficial parking areas of the event.
“I honestly couldn’t tell you how many other cars showed up due to the fact they filled up both of my extra lots, so everyone started parking in the hospital parking, the mall parking, and even the jail parking,” Deutsch said.
He was quick to point out that parking at the clinic and jail was not his idea.
“Our spectators had nowhere else to park,” he said. “And I’m sure I’ll hear about it from my venue.”
Sgt. DeeAnn Servey, spokeswoman for the Davis County Sheriff’s Office, acknowledged that many festival-goers risked citations or being towed.
“We had a deputy at the jail parking lot telling people to move their cars,” Servey wrote in an email.
Farmington Police Chief Wayne Hansen said that other than the parking problems, the only issue his department faced was traffic control when the event ended — getting all of the vehicles and pedestrians safely out of there.
But the other issue with Scrapefest, according to Servey, was that some event-goers “don’t leave the activities at the fairgrounds.”
“They will spin their wheels as they leave the parking lot and want to continue to drive that way on the streets,” she said.
The sheriff’s office, Farmington Police Department and Utah Highway Patrol were involved in a few such traffic stops following Scrapefest, according to Servey.
“Once officers made contact with drivers, they would run their information and find minor infractions and either cite or warn them about the violations,” she wrote.
Mostly, violations were for things like lack of insurance or driving on a suspended license. Servey said the sheriff’s office issued only about three citations Sunday evening — most motorists were simply given warnings.
“The police presence deterred further exhibition of speed along the city streets,” she explained. “We have not had a problem with the event itself; it is mainly when the event-goers take their celebrations out on the city and county streets. We have an issue with that.”
Deutsch said they remind Scrapefest participants to obey all laws.
“We ask those not to rev and burn out, but there are always those people who do it,” Deutsch said. “And that’s why we have Davis County cops there. We are great friends. We want a safe, fun environment!”
And considering the police presence on Sunday evening, I’m glad I didn’t give in to the crowd’s chants to peel out on my mountain bike.
Contact Mark Saal at 801-625-4272, or msaal@standard.net. Follow him on Twitter at @Saalman. Friend him on Facebook at facebook.com/MarkSaal.