A county fair is a curious thing. Made curiouser by some stretch of time out between visits. Like, say, while out of the country for a couple of years.

Deep-fried Snickers? Pig races? “Amazing” shower-door scum removers?

A fair is probably as telling a slice of Americana as can be imagined, and as such is a bit alarming. “We like to eat/watch/wear that? Judging from the line of people waiting, apparently we do.”

Perhaps dozens of other countries on the face of the planet can produce large crowds for a demolition derby. I know for a fact you can draw a big crowd here.

The demolition derby was the crowning moment (well, crowning hour) of our visit to the Orange County Fair, which is pretty much exactly like every other county fair you’ve ever been to. Deeply disturbing.

The derby hinged on 12 battered hulks in a soggy pit, each garishly painted and numbered, and daubed with the names of small-time advertisers. All of the hulks were, interestingly, products of Detroit assembly lines, Impalas and a Silverado, Chevys, which perhaps is a point of pride for domestic automakers. When it comes to battering a car into a shapeless wreck, only Made in the USA will do.

Two of the 12 drivers were amateurs culled from the crowd after charity auctions. Highest bidder in either of the auctions, and I believe one went for $5,000 and the other for $1,700, were allowed to drive in the derby. Given the low speeds and the soggy bog, injuries probably are infrequent, but still: Paying large amounts of money to be involved with numerous slow-speed crashes?

Clearly, we love demo derbies.

A stalwart of a demolition derby is the station wagon, presumably because it offers another few extra feet of sheet metal in the caboose to be wadded up before damage is inflicted to critical portions of the vehicle.

If you think about it, demolition derbies are rather like vehicular gladiator shows. Contestants totter about, trying to hurt each other. Sometimes a fatal blow is struck, but usually it’s a matter of piercing an opponent’s fluid system and then staying away as he/it bleeds out. While citizens packed into the stands roar.

“Those who are about to crash salute you.”

At the derby, the simplest method to fatally wound an opponent is to back into his or her radiator. Once cooling fluid drains out, the engine will overheat and then lock up, and that’s that. But it could take a while.

The crowd favorite was the camouflaged “Support Our Troops” station wagon, atop which three guys in U.S. Marine chocolate-chips camo gear stood as it heaved into the arena. Each of them was waving flags approximately the size of a baseball tarp, and the subsequent “cheer for your favorite” event was coronation, not competition.

Oh, and before we could fire up the wrecks and get to banging, we had to stand and sing the national anthem. Really? It is a moment of national import, when we are about to have a demo derby? We need to haul out a shouting and tone-deaf “R&B recording artist” to properly consecrate an exercise in schlock and mayhem? Francis Scott Key would be embarrassed.

So. The derby.

The amateurs stood out. They perhaps knew the point of the exercise — crashing into opponents while driving in reverse, so as to save your radiator. But they were cautious in getting started, and loath to crank it up to 15-20 mph, and they turned into big clay pigeons for the professionals. (Well, $2,000 went to the winner.)

A couple of kill shots eliminated a few cars early, and the crowd gasped and shouted. But after 20 minutes a half-dozen of the hulks were still moving, and we were edging dangerously close to ennui. Even Californians lose interest some time into their third dozen car wrecks.

Though I did come to admire the driver of No. 48, some old hideous Chevy-like thing, who was by far the most aggressive driver and perhaps had fortified his ride with some unseen steel, because it was beyond battered but still moving. He lost a bumper, was stuck a time or two on debris and still was inflicting damage. One front tire was shredded, and the other front wheel had been smacked into a crazy angle that would seem to have precluded him from stepping on the pedal and actually arriving at any planned destination.

One competitor, an amateur in the No. 11 USC car (painted in cardinal and gold, and apparently No. 11 in tribute to NFL bust Matt Leinart) attempted to play possum, just sitting on the edge of festivities for 10 or 15 minutes, apparently out of commission. But then he would put it in gear and careen around a bit, and the  second time he tried this (rules call for cars to move every two minutes) he was black-flagged by exasperated race officials, who by then may have been looking to get 5,000 fair-goers back out onto the midway spending money on gadgets, barf rides and deep-fried something or other.

The Support Our Troops wagon lasted late, but the winner was No. 48,  driven by a man described by the announcer as “a wily old veteran in his 40s!”

As we shuffled out of the arena, the acrid stench of burning engines and spewing transmission fluid was like a perfume, and before we had cleared the venue a half-dozen tow trucks had descended on the scene of the show to drag away the losers. Rather like, yes, the mules who dragged losing gladiators out of the arena.

Can’t say it was deeply satisfying, but it certainly was interesting.

Earlier, we had sampled a few wines, partaken of deep-fried dinner (though I skipped it; I can’t bring myself to eat the likes of “deep-fried butter” which, yes, is really on sale), seen the pig races, in the little arena next to where the “trick dogs” perform, and ended the night marveling at the “Beijing” acrobats throwing themselves around a stage so wrecklessly you wondered how many personal-injury lawyers were in the crowd.

Speaking of legal annoyances … I was a bit surprised the pig races and dog show and “ride a tortured pony” ring and even the elephant ride ($7 to sit; $10 more to have your photo taken) were allowed to go on. Isn’t California, at least, in some sort of post-PETA state, where parakeets are accorded rights only slightly below those of a newborn child? I think someone needs to get busy in front of a judge — unless, perhaps, the animal extremists are waiting for an eight-foot-tall elephant to flip out after the last half-dozen suburbanites have climbed atop his back, and take off into the crowd and leave behind a trail of stamping ruin.

Thoroughly sated, we took the bus back to the parking lot, and everyone had a good time, including me, but you can’t help but wonder if all this was what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Well, maybe they did, when they were trashing that British ship and hurling tea into Boston Harbor.