Cheers erupt as Thomas DeSantis enters the burnout pit.
With his cloak on and scythe in hand, he calls himself the “Grim Reaper.” The nickname fits the car he drives: a coffin on wheels that he built from spare parts in three months.
His friends, too, look ready for the procession. Members of DeSantis’ Dead Metal Car Club are dressed in black, some wearing vests covered with pins and iron-on patches. One patch on DeSantis’ right side reads, “That’s a terrible idea. When do we start?”
As the crowd grows louder, DeSantis and another club member pull the coffin car into a corner of the pit, hemmed in by concrete barriers. The driver holds the brake and hits the gas. Rrraaah-skreee. The objective is simple. Turn rubber into smoke.
“It’s a thrill, man,” DeSantis said. “It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s a good time.”
Holding the brakes while pressing the accelerator sends the tires spinning against the pavement until the rubber begins to disintegrate. Within seconds, thick white smoke billows above the coffin car.
Some spectators cover their mouths and noses. Others retreat from the cloud. The die-hards breathe it all in.
“We do this for fun,” DeSantis said. “This is our lives. It’s what we do every day.”
DeSantis, of Belvidere, New Jersey, was among dozens of drivers who entered the burnout pit at the Rat’s Nest Run-In in East Durham. Organizers said the four-day festival, held Aug. 13–16, featured more than 500 pre-1972 hot rods and custom cars. The annual gathering, now in its 17th year, also included live music, an antique flea market, tattooing, pinstriping, fireworks, and a 24-hour burnout pit.
Rat rods are custom cars deliberately built to appear worn, unfinished, or pieced together, a style that emerged from biker and punk subcultures in the early 1990s. If a conventional classic car seeks flawless paint and factory standard fidelity, a rat rod makes virtues of rust, exposed welds, and whatever its builder can rescue from a scrap pile.
Hundreds of cars lined the resort grounds on Saturday. Some had come for the pit. Others were there to be admired.
“I’ve been hammering the car hard,” said Corbin Bouton, of Roxbury, as he changed his tires.
By Saturday morning, Bouton had entered the burnout pit 30 times since the festival opened. The punishment had already taken its toll.
“I blew my driveshaft,” he said.
Bouton also competes at the Burnout Nationals in Middletown, where drivers are timed and judged on their ability to produce smoke. Compared with that competition, he said, the Rat’s Nest Run-In was a chance to cut loose.
“You have to make smoke, you have to be timed, there’s a lot more to it,” Bouton said. “This is just for fun.”
The smoke is half the attraction. The ingenuity behind the cars is the other. David Jardin, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, bought his 1935 Chevrolet as a passion project during the pandemic.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would still have it to this day,” he said. “I was flipping. I would buy them, tinker with them a little bit, and send them down the road.”
The classic Chevrolet became a keeper because of the people and memories attached to it. “The people I’ve met, the stories that come with it, it’s part of the family now,” Jardin said.
Thomas DeSantis (far left) stands with fellow members of the Dead Metal Car Club at the Rat’s Nest Run-In. 
Lisa Olivera and David Jardin, both of New Bedford, Massachusetts, attend the Rat’s Nest Run-In at Blackthorne Resort. 
Brian Morris judges the burnout contest at the Rat’s Nest Run-In in East Durham. 
Roger Burriss, of Beaver Falls in Lewis County, stands beside the 1940 Ford rat rod he built in two months.
Roger Burriss, of Beaver Falls in Lewis County, took a more literal approach to the rat rod creed. A paper mill worker who also owns a small custom car shop, Burriss built his 1940 Ford in two months.
“A lot of the parts and stuff I used on it came out of the dumpster at the mill,” he said. “In true rat rod fashion, it’s made out of junk.”
His yellow 1954 Chrysler took about a year to build.
“I say it’s like being an artist,” Burriss said. “If you’re in the mood, sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s not. I can close the garage door if I’m not feeling it and come back to it when I am.”
The creativity of custom cars is what inspires him, he said.
“I just have this creative imagination,” Burriss said. “If you see it, make it happen.”
Before long, Burriss drove his Ford into the burnout pit as a last-minute entrant in a four-car contest. Unlike the Burnout Nationals, the winner was determined by crowd reaction alone. The Dead Metal Car Club drew the loudest response.
Original photography by Roy Gumpel for The Overlook.
Connor Greco is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Windham, Hunter, and surrounding Greene County communities. Send correspondence to connor@theoverlooknews.com.
