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POSTED: Friday, Jun. 06, 2008

Ferndale teen rebuilds car for demolition derby

Senior project a crash course

FERNDALE — When Jordan Quanz first pitched her senior project idea — building a demolition derby car — her teachers doubted she could pull it off.

But once Quanz had the idea in her head, no one could talk her out of it.

“I always love trying to prove people wrong,” the 17-year old Ferndale High senior said. “It was something no one else would do, especially a girl.”

Quanz passed her senior project with no problems. The professional look of the “Dukes of Hazzard”-orange car emblazoned with the number 11 surprised the review panel. But her project won’t end until Aug. 11, when she competes in the demolition derby at the Northwest Washington Fair in Lynden.

“Sure, at first I’ll be thinking, ‘Don’t hit me!’” she said. “But as things get going, I’m sure I’ll be revving my engine with dirt flying.”

Quanz got the idea, which consumed the second half of her senior year, last summer while watching the demolition derby with a friend. When she told her uncle Gene Quanz, a former Skagit Speedway racer, and her dad, John Quanz, Gene’s crew chief, about it, the whole family got behind the idea.

In February, Ferndale-based LCM Towing donated a 1984 Chevy Caprice. The teen immediately started working, clearing out all the garbage, including moldy Tupperware and receipts, and “ripping and tearing everything out.”

She had no automotive experience, so with the help of her uncle and dad, she took out the car windows, installed roll bars and door bars, took out all but one seat, made a gas tank to go behind the driver’s seat, built a battery box and cleaned the engine.

Though the General Lee of Dukes fame bore the number 01, Jordan Quanz honored her uncle by emblazoning her car with an 11, the number on his race cars.

The car sitting in her driveway is a bit of a local attraction.

“People come up the road and kind of slow down” when they see it, she said. “It doesn’t suit the neighborhood.”

If someone had told Quanz as a freshman this would be her senior project, she probably would have said they were nuts.

“I was very quiet freshman year,” she said. “I was very into books and work.”

But in her junior year, Quanz realized she wanted to change. Now the self-proclaimed goofball is loud and energetic, which comes in handy when jumping hurdles for the track team and at her job pushing shopping carts at Fred Meyer.

“I love being active,” she said. “I hate sitting still for long.”

Quanz will graduate June 14. She will attend Whatcom Community College in the fall and plans to transfer to the University of Washington eventually to become a child psychologist.

But until then, all of Quanz’s nervousness is being saved for the demolition derby.

“I’m terrified,” she said. “But everyone has a list of stuff to do before they die, and this is something that I wanted to do and cross off my list at an early age.”