These bang-up photos will make you nostalgic for demolition derbies

Everyone has that singular summer memory, the one that remains as the years progress, the one that needs no more than a scent or a sound to jar a person back to his or her childhood.

For Cleveland photographer Dustin Franz, 26, it's the scent of motor oil and the sound of metal-on-metal that brings him back to those lazy days growing up in northeast Ohio. As a kid, Franz used to attend the county fair each summer with his family and his favorite part was always the demolition derby.

Recently, Franz got to relive that childhood anticipation and excitement while on assignment for Ohio's Athens News. Franz photographed a Crash-n-Bash, a fundraiser for a local fire department in Athens, which doubled as a preview of a larger derby later held at the Athens County Fair.

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Walking the familiar steps toward the dirt track, listening to the soundtrack of roaring engines, and smelling that distinct gaseous perfume, Franz felt instantly at home.

"The culture (of demolition derby) is the same wherever I go," he said in an interview. "It seems like everyone who participates is cut from the same cloth. These guys spend so much time modifying a car and decorating it just to destroy it. I love it."

Franz might have been capturing the contemporary moment, but his eerily beautiful black and white photos untether the event from a specific time and place. The crushed vintage cars kick up mud and dirt. Indifferent adults squint into the sun from the stands. And screaming kids, pressed up against the fence, make heroes of the ordinary men who step into the drivers' side seats of the battered vehicles.

Welcome to summer in Anytown, U.S.A.

**See more of Dustin Franz's work via his website, or on Tumblr, or follow him on Instagram**