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Roanoke Fall Festival starts tonight, runs through Saturday

A car driven by Zac McGraw, of Portland, T-bones the car driven by Adam Dziabis, of Whitley County, during the 2015 Roanoke Fall Festival Demolition Derby. The event returns this year on Saturday, Sept. 10, at Roanoke Park.
A car driven by Zac McGraw, of Portland, T-bones the car driven by Adam Dziabis, of Whitley County, during the 2015 Roanoke Fall Festival Demolition Derby. The event returns this year on Saturday, Sept. 10, at Roanoke Park. TAB file photo.

Festival-lovers will get a taste of the weekend to come as the first events of the Roanoke Fall Festival get underway tonight, Thursday, Sept. 8.

The carnival opens at 5 p.m. and Food Alley at 6 p.m., with a pet parade, pie-eating contest and a show by Hubie Ashcraft rounding out the evening.

The festival continues Friday and Saturday, Sept. 9 and 10, with music by The Bulldogs on Friday night and Press the Glass on Saturday — both at 8:30 p.m.

Carnival fun starts Friday at 6 p.m. and, with the exception of the Ageless Iron tractor parade downtown at 6:10 p.m., takes place at Roanoke Park.

The park will be bustling Saturday from 9:30 a.m. until after the evening concert, with the Fall Festival parade winding its way through Roanoke’s downtown area at 3 p.m.

Two of the festival’s major events are the NTPA Tractor Pull on Friday night and the Demolition Derby on Saturday, both sponsored by the Roanoke Tractor Pullers Association and chaired by Kelly Schoenemann.

And Schonemann promises some major thrills both nights.

“Every year, we try to build our shows bigger and bigger and bigger,” she says.

The weekend will also feature visits by mascots of two Fort Wayne sports teams and a balloon release that ties in to a new beneficiary of some of the weekend’s proceeds.

The new beneficiary is Erin’s House for Grieving Children, a Fort Wayne-based organization that helps children cope with the death of a loved one. Donations will still be made to past recipients, Schoenemann says, but each year the group looks for a new organization to help out.

“Over the past year, we have lost some loved ones who were members of our club, leaving behind families,” she says, explaining why the group chose Erin’s House. “We thought it was a great organization with great values.”

Both Friday and Saturday nights, members of the crowd can purchase balloons on a donation basis and write messages to loved ones on the balloons, which will be released before each night’s event.

Friday’s tractor pull is sanctioned by the National Tractor Pullers Association (NTPA), and pullers in four of the night’s five classes will be competing for prizes and points. Because it’s getting close to the end of the pulling season, Schoenemann expects some of the area’s top pullers to show up at the Roanoke event to pile on more points and try out strategies to get ready for the NTPA’s end-of-season Enderle Pull-Off, set for Sept. 17 in Urbana, OH. The summer’s top five NTPA competitors in each class will compete in the Enderle, a “champions’ pull,” vying prize money and bragging rights, she says.

The fifth class at the Roanoke pull, a diesel invitational, is not an NTPA class. The diesel tractors belch clouds of black smoke as they pull weighted sleds down the track.

Gates open for the tractor pull at 5:30 p.m. on Friday and, for the second year, spectators are invited to visit the pit area to meet the competitors and get an up-close look at the tractors. The pits close when the show starts at 7 p.m.

Also before the show on Friday, Johnny — the mascot of the Fort Wayne TinCaps — will be on hand for a meet-and-greet from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Roanoke’s pull traditionally draws some 40 competitors from Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky, Schoenemann says, with competition expected to wrap up between 10:30 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Gates open at 6 p.m. for Saturday night’s Demolition Derby and Icy D. Eagle, mascot of the Fort Wayne Komets, will be on hand from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The show, which Schoenemann says is “one of Indiana’s larger demolition derbies” drawing competitors mainly from Indiana and Ohio, starts at 7 p.m.

This year’s derby features a new class dedicated to trucks. The county heat, which featured drivers from just Huntington County, has been discontinued.

This is the 27th year the Roanoke Tractor Pullers Association has sponsored the events. Both are held on the Pull Field at Roanoke Park, and food, including Pizza Hut, will be available both nights. Event T-shirts can also be purchased.

“It’s a good family event, with fun events for the entire weekend,” Schoenemann says, made possible by the support of volunteers, spectators and competitors.