Gone are the days of choreographed clotheslines and death defying skating antics. The old wooden banked tracks have all been demolished.
And the rails that used to hold the roller derby athletes on track - they're history too.
"We go flying through the crowd," said Aundrea Blair (a.k.a. Cherry Darling), a two-year veteran with Lexington's own roller derby league, Rollergirls of Central Kentucky (R.O.C.K.). "Hence suicide seating; you have to be 18 to sit around the track. You will get hit."
The new track layout, incorporated in the late '90s, allowed for an explosive grassroots movement to erupt on skating rinks, and many other flat surfaces (like an airport hangar for one popular team in California), across the country.
Since being created in 2004, the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA), the sports sanctioning body, now recognizes nearly 250 leagues-up from 60 less than four years ago. But not every league is a member team of WFTDA, like R.O.C.K.-there's a rather rigorous application process that involves, among other things, players' abilities and sponsorship from another WFTDA member team. The Black-n-Bluegrass Rollergirls in Covington, Ky., have paired up with R.O.C.K. (the Derby City Roller Girls in Louisville are the other team in Kentucky).
The local group has gone through a few incarnations, but now the R.O.C.K. league is broken down into two teams: the Bourbon Brawlers and the Sour Scouts. The best from each team get to travel to away bouts-the term for a match up of teams in the sport.
But while some of the old relics and stunts might be a thing of the past, some of the vestiges are still pertinent. The athletes wear helmets and other protective gear, and the provocative outfits and boisterous attitudes are all still obvious tools of bringing the crowd in.
"That's why we wear short skirts and fishnets-it's showmanship," Blair said. "You've got to catch them with something to get them through the door, and then they get hooked."
And all the players still assume a fiendishly devised handle that suits their persona-usually a mix of brash and relevance, like Dr. Rankenstein and SueThenasia, who both work for a veterinarian clinic here in Lexington.
Interestingly, no two girls have the same registered roller derby name. There's even a national database of names so new recruits can see the list before choosing their own pseudonym. (Visit www.twoevils.org to peruse the list.)
Coupled with the staged theatrics of the past, these aliases have been a bit of barricade in convincing the public that roller derby, now, is a sport, not just a show.
"Roller derby is not a common sport that people think of. People think of football and basketball and hockey-those athletes don't need another name to get the fans in," Blair said. "It's kitsch-y little things like that that get people's attentionÖBut it gives the misconception to people that if we have fake names, it must be a fake sport."
In terms of other aspects of sports, roller derby is certainly qualified-there are even national championships. WFTDA publishes a painstakingly detailed, 27-page rulebook. The equipment, like any sport, can be expensive or cheap, including skates, which can be as pricey as $900 or as affordable as $100. Knee, elbow and any other protective guard also runs the price gamut.
And, with any sport, there's also a fair share of bodily harm: "I broke my tailbone two home games ago," Blair said. "One girl broke an arm. Another girl got a concussion last game. We've had many ACL injuries."
So the question begs to be asked: What's the appeal of roller derby?
"It's not just one thing. You ask every single girl on the team and you'll probably get a different answer from each one of them," Blair said. "I've always been involved with a sport. I'm 34 years old, there's not a lot of group sports that I can get involved in right now and really excel at."
ParaLethal (a.k.a. Billie Harris) is a paralegal with a law firm in Lexington. She heard an announcement for a roller derby bout on the radio and thought she'd check it out.
"And I never left," she said. "My teens think I'm crazy."
Roller derby, as a sport, doesn't discriminate against the players who lace up their skates, and a look at the R.O.C.K roster reveals 32 athletes from every roll of life. There's an orthopedic surgeon and a body piercer. There's a statistics teacher at the University of Kentucky and there are the jobless. There are the experienced and there are the rink virgins.
"We've got girls on the team who never strapped on a pair of skates until the day they walked in to join the league," Blair said.
Aside from teaching new recruits how to skate, they also have to teach them how to play, which is an endeavor in itself. The gist of the game involves five players from each team on the track at the same time: one jammer (an offensive player) and four defensive players. The jammers score points by lapping the defensive players (also called the pack). There's a lot more to the game (see the above referenced 27-page rulebook), and programs are available at the beginning of each R.O.C.K. bout with short explanations about the game's procedures.
All the local bouts are held at Champs Entertainment Complex, where the team also practices twice a week-scrimmaging or honing specific skill sets (like a leg slingshot, a three person maneuver involving a jammer being catapulted forward by holding on to a swinging leg from a teammate who supports herself by holding on to another; it's a crowd pleaser).
The next R.O.C.K bout is The Rollergirl Jail Break on July 27 at Champs. The doors open at 7 p.m. and the skating begins at 8 p.m. It is an all-ages event and concessions are available. Just remember what Cherry Darling says about the suicide seating.
For more information on the Rollergirls of Central Kentucky, visit their Web page at www.rocknrollergirls.com.