Fair Time, and It’s a Rush

For Mollie Herrman, 11, the Orange County Fair is old hat. She’s come every year since she was 5, making her eminently qualified to offer an expert’s opinion of this year’s fair.

“Cool,” she announced, after a two-hour sneak peek Thursday that included a half-hour of panning for gold in a plastic tub filled with water and dirt, two trips on the new Bumble Bees ride and scarfing down a free corn dog.

This year’s fair, the 107th, is titled “Join the Rush,” celebrating the state’s sesquicentennial and the Gold Rush that launched a major westward movement to California.

The fair opens to the public at 10 this morning, but members of the news media were given a preview Thursday. On hand to assist were some 30 so-called fair brats--children of fair employees. With camera crews and notebook-bearing reporters in tow, the children led the rush toward the attractions.

Mollie--whose stepdad Larry Gimple manages the equestrian center--pronounced her approval of Gold Pan Alley, where junior prospectors are given a chance to pan for genuine gold flakes, gems and minerals, hidden in brown muck. But she wrinkled her nose in disdain at the fair’s newest family ride, Bumble Bees, which takes children and their parents bobbing up and down in circles aboard oversized bees that emit a sound resembling a car alarm.

“I’d rather dig through the mud,” she said.

As she strolled through the fairgrounds, she pointed out some of her perennial favorites, including the hair-raising Zipper, which tumbles riders end over end, as well as the only ride in the fair that scares her--Top Spin.

“Actually, I’m not afraid of it,” she amended her statement defiantly. “I just don’t want to get sick, so I don’t ride it.”

At the sight of the fair’s newest thrill ride, the Inverter, which lifts riders 50 feet, then flips them over and over while the boom arm follows a continuous arc, she snickered, “It doesn’t look like a big deal.”

This marks the 50th year the fair has been in Costa Mesa. Although county fairs were held as far back as 1890, it wasn’t until 1949, when the fair took up residence in its present location--formerly the Santa Ana Army Base--that it began to resemble the giant spectacle it is today, said Becky Bailey-Findley, general manager.

“The fair finally had a home, and it started to develop an identity,” she said. In years previous, fairs bounced from location to location, run by various organizations. In 1949, with the move to Costa Mesa, the fair came under the purview of the state Department of Food and Agriculture, which has run it ever since.

Fifty years ago, the fair was a four-day event occupying 50 acres. This year, the fair will run 17 days and take up 160 acres.

While adding a few new rides and exhibits this year, the fair primarily offers more of the same fare of rides, games, livestock and old-fashioned fun that it has in recent years.

That’s perfectly fine, according to Mollie.

She talked excitedly Thursday about the prospect of taking in the thrill rides again: “I like the downhill part when your stomach goes up.”

She registered her disappointment at not being able to ride the Super Slide, as workers put last-minute touches on it.

Mollie plans to be at the fair’s opening ceremonies today. She’ll don a miner’s hat and grab a prospector’s bag to join a parade through the fairgrounds, complete with kazoo players, clowns and mimes.

The first 150 adult visitors today will be entered in a contest to take home a gold nugget valued at $1,000.

The fair also makes its online debut this year.

Hosts from Adrenaline Radio, an online radio station based in Whittier, will transmit continuously during fair hours from the Floral & Garden building, interviewing gardening and farm experts as well as some of fair’s headline performers.

“We’re going to marry old-fashioned ideas with high-tech knowledge and do something truly cutting-edge,” said Nick Federoff, a radio host who founded the station at www.adrenalineradio.com.

Also, near the fair’s entrance, a kiosk of Internet-connected computers will be set up. Users will have a digital snapshot taken of them that will immediately be posted to their own Web sites announcing: “I attended the Orange County Fair.”

According to fair officials, each year brings a new challenge of devising the proper mixture of the traditional and the newfangled that will attract new fairgoers yet not upset veterans who remain fiercely loyal to the fair’s country roots.

“It’s a balance,” Bailey-Findley said. “Yes, we have the new and the exciting, but we also have the traditional as well.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Avoiding the Rush

Steering clear of traffic congestion around the Orange County Fairgrounds could prove difficult beginning today, especially during peak fiar-going hours. A guide to getting to the fair:

Today’s Highlights at the O.C. Fair

Hours are 10 a.m. to midnight

All-day events

* Rare-fruit growers

* Game birds

* O.C. Vector Control

* Small animals on display

* Newborn animals on display

* Breeding beef on display

8 a.m.

* Pacific Coast quarter horse show (until 5 p.m.)

10 a.m.

* Opening day ceremonies

* Orange County Woodturners Assn. (until 8 p.m.)

* China painters (until 8 p.m.)

* O.C. Beekeepers candle-making (until 8:30 p.m.)

* Junior rabbit showmanship judging (until noon)

10:30 a.m.

* Billy Erickson--country/contemporary guitarist

* Sourdough Slim

11 a.m.

* Billy Cioffi--classic-rock guitarist

* Amy Jo--singer/guitarist

* Showbiz Singers

11:30 a.m.

* Sourdough Slim

* BJ & the Puppet Truck

Noon

* All-Alaskan racing pigs

* Cowpoke

* Grupo Atzalan

* Twinkle Toes

* Showbiz Kidz

12:30 p.m.

* Charlie Keeling--glass blower

* Sourdough Slim

1 p.m.

* Championship corn-on-the-cob-eating contest

* Children’s Magic Matinee with Prof. Marvel

* Doggies of the wild west

* Picasso’s Place Children’s Art Center (until 8 p.m.)

* Doris Knap, fiber artist

* Beach Cities Stars

* 49 and Counting

* Viento Y Madera (Andes music)

2 p.m.

* Red River Riders (until 7 p.m.)

* Russell Brothers Circus

* Scale Squadron

* Good News Kids

* Earl Hill--vocalist

3 p.m.

* Professor Invent (the ABCs of inventing)

* Goin’ for the gold

* Beach Cities Stars

* Boot Stompers

* The Colony

3:30 p.m.

* Cake and candy making featuring September Hoeler

4 p.m.

* Main Street jazz

* Pan for gold

* Dances in Praise

* Japan Karate Do Itosu-Kai of Costa Mesa

* Showbiz Singers

* Earl Hill--vocalist

* Open breeding beef judging (until 6:30 p.m.)

* Walter Colvin--pianist (until 9 p.m.)

4:30 p.m.

* Rick Mabrey--variety guitarist

* Trinidad steel drum band

* Professor Marvel’s Magic

5 p.m.

* Zany Grainy

* West Coast Musical Theater

* Imagination Creations sign-ups

6 p.m.

* Main Street jazz

* Dances in Praise

* Rhythmo (youth mariachi)

6:30 p.m.

* Hypnotist Mark Yuzuik

* Trinidad steel drum band

* Magical Rush with Erikk Dalu, Terry Godfrey, Goldfinger & Dove

* Balloon Man Skip Banks

7 p.m.

* Sinbad in concert

* Karaoke for Kids

7:30 p.m.

* Doo Wah Riders

* All-Alaskan racing pigs

8 p.m.

* Sidecar racing (until 10 p.m.)

* Close Harmony

9 p.m.

* Sinbad in concert

9:30 p.m.

* Doo Wah Riders

* Steve Lord--contemporary singer/guitarist

10 p.m.

* Close Harmony

SATURDAY’S HIGHLIGHTS

1 p.m. Lemon-squeezing contest

7 and 9 p.m. Vonda Shepard in concert

Source: Orange County Fair & Exposition Center