"Witness header-to-header combat, high on the fruited plains!"

One June day each year, the tiny farming town of Lind, Washington explodes with vibrant sound and color and crushing action--and grows tenfold in population--as retired wheat harvesting combines converge from around the region to compete in an offbeat and hilarious sporting event now recognized around the world. Over 20 years in the running, the Lind Combine Demolition Derby, sponsored by the town's Lions Club, generates critical funding for many of the town's activities and amenities. In a time when many of America's family farms are in jeopardy due to global economics, corporate farming, and political forces, this contest offers an ingenious hand of support to one local community.

Amber Waves & Checkered Flags follows the five-year journey of two best friends to gain and hold the championship title as their fathers did before them. As kids, Matt and Josh drove combine in their families' wheat fields, dreaming of the day they’d be old enough to "derby" the aged machines they would work hard to refurbish. Josh and Matt and numerous family members and friends convene around "Jaws", the finned, sky-blue, John Deere 6602 sidehill combine, to ready the beast for battle in the Lind Rodeo Arena. Malfunctioning machinery may mean defeat. Plus, the competition is stiff--and sometimes victory is snatched from Jaws...but not for long! This film captures the derby's jubilant spirit; but it also reveals the poignant struggle of towns like Lind, and young farmers like Josh and Matt, to hold on to an endangered way of life.

With a strong desire to grow and provide food and a keen closeness to this vast and striking landscape, Eastern Washington dryland wheat family farmers struggle against odds few of us would tolerate, including drought, crop disease, and swings in market forces. Before advances in agricultural science and technology, farmers also battled with primitive harvesting equipment, as we see in both archival and re-enactment footage depicting horse-drawn and steam-generated threshing machines. Historians describe the evolution of mechanization like the combine harvester, which ironically, has led to the need for fewer farm laborers over the last century. In many ways an art as much as a science, farmers collaborate with the local experiment station to develop innovative ways to cultivate new strains of wheat for more robust and sustainable harvest. While some old-timers lament the loss of more hands-on methods, Lind area farmers also take pride in forging generations of experience with cutting-edge advances.

But despite diligent efforts, Lind's population continues to shrink. With neither enough land nor resources to keep the next generation on the farm, many kids must move away to start their own families. By the same token, it's almost impossible to begin new family farms. While not a panacea to the crisis of dying farm towns, the Lind Combine Demolition Derby embodies the unflagging hope of many farming communities, as these gleaners-turned-gladiators reflect one town's true fighting spirit.