lbrdmashupsliderscooter Roller Derby nights at the Queen Mary Dome began a little more than 1 ½ years ago—the second season’s championship bout is Dec. 9—but they already feel like deep Long Beach tradition.

An end-of-the-working-week oomph—the mix of exhaustion, relief and need-for-recharge that characterized Friday nights in Long Beach when it beat to a blue-collar heart—seems to permeate the crowd of hipsters, office-tower types and curiosity seekers who are squeezed into the grandstands. Maybe the recession has everyone feeling that way.

Or maybe it’s just the impression created by the prevalence of bygone-era styles—especially 1950s-pinup hair and clothes—expressed in the players’ uniforms and favored by many fans. The B-movie promotional style of the event’s gladiator-queen promotional posters and the wiseguy who narrates the bout certainly add to that perception. And then, of course, there’s the fact that Roller Derby originated in the mid-20th century.

There’s a faint flavor of the old Pike amusement park in the carnival-like atmosphere of the Vendor Village, the energy stoked by the band that warms up the crowd, the DJ who provides the evening’s soundtrack and the firedancing women of Sirena Serpentina whose halftime shows contribute smidgen of freak to the equation.

Even the Long Beach Roller Derby’s big, new and expensive upgrade—a wooden track of birch planks whose edges are lifted into banked turns—feels like a throwback to simpler times, although it would have been hard to get any simpler than last year’s skating surface—the Queen Mary Dome’s flat, black concrete floor, delineated by adhesive tape.

When the bout begins, and 10 powerful women are suddenly in movement, pushing themselves and 80 little roller skate wheels across those boards and around those banked turns, the new track responds with a whoosh and rattle and creak. The sound revs up the latest sellout crowd and perhaps reminds some of them of the Cyclone Racer, the huge wooden roller coaster that was the centerpiece of the Long Beach waterfront for decades. In that moment, whatever that track cost seems totally worth it.

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lbrdtblanchechasescooter400470 At this particular moment, however, Long Beach Roller Derby has less than two months to raise $20,000 to pay off debts that have been largely created by that banked, wooden track—or face filing for bankruptcy, going out of business and leaving the rest of us to mourn Roller Derby nights at the Queen Mary Dome as we do so many other lost Long Beach traditions.

A fundraising campaign to save Long Beach Roller Derby and guarantee a third season was launched Nov. 6 on Kickstarter.com, along with a video explaining the need to raise the money.

The rules of the site require fundraisers to establish goals of money and time—in the case of Long Beach Roller Derby, that’s $20,000 by January 12, 2012. As people make donations, the up-to-date total is monitored on the website, but the money is set aside until the deadline arrives. If at that point the fundraisers have reached their goal, they get the money. But if they have fallen short, the money is returned to the donors.

As of Tuesday (Nov. 29)—17 days into the campaign—donations total $2,321, an average of 136.50 a day. Put another way,  with 43 days to go, the drive is $17,679 short.

Nonetheless, the co-founders of Long Beach Roller Derby—women who go by their playing nicknames of Diesel and Estro Jen—say they are optimistic that fans will help them out of this financial hole.

“I don’t think that the community will let the fundraiser fail,” said Diesel, who in a pre-Derby lifetime was known as Lindsey Karnopp. Yet she remains concerned that the glowing welcome Long Beach Roller Derby received and all the stories about the success it has achieved may work against the effort. “I just worry that people might not be aware we have a problem.”

Long Beach Roller Derby’s do-or-die predicament is hard to fathom. How does instant popularity, frequent sellouts—about 2,000 tickets per bout at prices between $15 and $30—and a workforce of unpaid volunteer players, coaches and staff bring an organization to the brink of extinction?

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Apparently, it mostly comes back to that track. Although major expenses also include rent for the Queen Mary Dome and insurance, the track seems to have been the first and biggest detrimental domino to fall. It’s certainly the focus of Long Beach Roller Derby’s fundraising campaign.

lbrdthechasescooter450279 “Your contribution will go towards helping us pay for our banked track,” says Estro Jen, the league’s other co-founder, who is known as Michelle Steilen on her birth certificate and the business license she got to run Moxie Skates shop on 4th Street, “so that we can have a third season.”

Estro and Diesel are among several players who made pitches for contributions in a video that was shown was shown to the crowd at last month’s bout, then posted on Kickstarter.com.

Although the birchwood-and-banked-turned track is the pride of Long Beach Roller Derby, epitomizing its quick fame, its high standards and its limitless possibilities, the track may also illustrate a bit of an overreach by local organizers. Banked wooden tracks are expensive, which is probably why fewer than a dozen roller derby leagues in the country have them.

To pay back the loan that bought the track, Long Beach Roller Derby counted on another season of packed houses. That seemed like a formality, especially when the promise of the track created a fresh buzz of publicity for the league—according to Diesel, several publications were planning big spreads on the opening of Long Beach Roller Derby’s second season.

But that delicate plan fell to pieces. Because of delays in construction and delivery, the track was not ready in time for the first bout of the season. Or for the second bout, either. When publications learned that the centerpiece of their features on Long Beach Roller Derby was a no-show, they cancelled their stories. Without the track and the publicity, the bouts were cancelled. For awhile, there seemed to be uncertainty about whether Long Beach Roller Derby would have a 2011 season at all.

“The dates of the bouts were printed on the special Long Beach Roller Derby Calendar that the league was selling,” noted one player, who asked not to be identified—neither by her real nor her Derby name—out of concern that her comments might be construed as unsupportive. “But then those bouts didn’t happen. Substitute dates were announced, but bouts were postponed, too. They kept pushing it back.

“The season finally opened only two or three days after the track arrived. Many of us never even got a chance to practice on it. The bout, itself, was our first time on a banked track.”

By that time, according to Diesel, Long Beach Roller Derby had fallen behind on payments and into debt, a situation that got worse when ticket sales—without the benefit of much publicity—were light for the first two bouts. The league never recovered, even as healthy ticket sales resumed. In fact, increased turnout combined with cost-cutting measures to make other problems.

“To save money, the league paid for smaller bleachers, but that created uncomfortable conditions for the fans,” said a source close to Long Beach Roller Derby. “People were so packed in that if they had to get up for some reason—like, to go to the bathroom—they couldn’t get their seat back when they returned.”

Additionally, according to the player quoted earlier in this story, Long Beach Roller Derby discontinued the practice of giving two free grandstand seats to members of the contesting teams—tickets the players could give to family or friends. Instead, the players were given two free tickets to the standing section.

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It would be easy to criticize the purchase of the wooden, banked track as an ill-conceived overreach by the organizers of the Long Beach Roller Derby, to cite this as an example of their passion overriding their financial common sense, and to use it as a reason not to contribute to the “Save Long Beach Roller Derby” fundraiser.

But that viewpoint would have to ignore the fact that without passion there would not be a Long Beach Roller Derby to save. It did not begin as purely a moneymaking proposition, but as a mission by a couple of women who love to roller skate.

According to Diesel, she and Estro Jen wanted to provide a platform with high production value, reconnect with the previous generations of roller derby fans and create local excitement for the sport. That objective resonated with lots of women.

“Our first meeting had seventy girls show up, and we had our hands full,” said Diesel, who makes her living as a freelance photographer. “I didn’t realize it would be a full time job until it was too late.”

For many of the women, Long Beach Roller Derby is more of a way of life than it is a hobby, and the passion doesn’t stop at just sacrificing their bodies. Administrators work upwards of 20 hours a week on coaching, scheduling, and promotions. They are not paid. Instead, all of the money raised in bouts goes right back into the Derby.

There are four teams—Terminal Island Tootsies, Belmont Hot Broads, Bixby Rollerettes and the 4th Street Retro Rollers—which are dressed in themed outfits from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, respectively. An all-star squad called the Long Beach Gals has also been formed to compete against teams outside of Long Beach.

While the bouts are billed as family-friendly, the sale of alcoholic beverages—proceeds go to the Queen Mary Dome, not Long Beach Roller Derby—adds a little bit of edge to the crowd. Likewise, the short skirts and booty shorts are hard to miss, although the players’ tattoos make for a better visual representation of the sport’s tough, physical nature. Despite wearing a helmet, knee and elbow pads, injuries are so common during bouts that participants are required to have medical insurance.

On the track, players leave their names behind in favor of their derby names, helping them put on their game face and get ready to batter their opponents.

“For a lot of women it’s an outlet for aggression,” says Bio Diesel—Diesel’s sister, as well as coach of the Bixby Rollerettes and current psychology student at Long Beach State.

The sport attracts women from many backgrounds and professions, including graphic artists, schoolteachers, a law-school student and a marine biologist. Often the link is to a different type of skating, with former and current roller figure skaters and ramp skaters in the mix. Other times, the derby fills the competitive void created when players left other sports behind.

“I knew that I could skate, and I always wanted to play a team sport,” said Slice Princess of the Hot Broads, an ice-skating instructor and mother of two boys. “I would be very disappointed if Long Beach Roller Derby had to fold. It’s become such a big part of my life. Not only would I not be able to compete, but all of the girls have become like family to me, and I would hate to lose that.”