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in the music tent at the Three County Fair, Polly Moore of South Hadley, left and Al Cardaropoli of Enfield , CT, take a zydeco dance lesson from the Dirty Rice Zydeco band.

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Below, Travis Lukasik, 21/2, of Chicopee, sits on a Massey Ferguson tractor that was part of the antique tractor display. He was there with his parents, Melissa and Tim Lukasik.

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After the Monster Truck Show Sunday at the Three-County Fair, fairgoers were able to take rides on one of the trucks.

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in the music tent at the Three County Fair, Polly Moore of South Hadley, left and Al Cardaropoli of Enfield , CT, take a zydeco dance lesson from the Dirty Rice Zydeco band.

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after the Monster Truck Show, one of the trucks gave rides to Fair attendees

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Chelsea Smith of Fieldstone Farm in Chesterfield, left, answers questions about her 10-month-old brown Swiss cow "Genneva." At right is Tony McPeck of Northampton, right, and his grandaughter, Adrianna Foran, 5, of Bristol, Conn. Smith is a member of the Hampshire County 4-H Cattle Club.

NORTHAMPTON - Popularity can be measured in lines at the Three-County Fair.

And judging by the crowd gathered Sunday afternoon outside the ticket booth for the demolition derby, the recently added car-smashing extravaganza is one of the hottest attractions of the 192-year-old agricultural fair.

The fair opens today at 11 a.m. for the final day.

Andy and Terry Bothwell of Goshen were second in line at the ticket booth with their son John and his girlfriend, Kristy Shippee. They got in line at least an hour before tickets went on sale, said John, 23.

They wanted good seats - after all, the family car, Terry's old minivan, was going to star in the show. John's friend was slated to drive in the derby.

"She'll do the best she can," said Terry, 50, of the van she drove for eight years, an old "girl" with more than 220,000 miles on it and a bit of rust under the hood.

"And if she wins I'll come out there and grab the trophy," Terry joked.

"It can get rough out there," added John, noting his friend had painted his family's names on the hood of the van to pay tribute to the Bothwells, "but it's all in good fun."

At almost two centuries old, the annual four-day fair has been updating its festivities over the past several years in a bid to attract more families. Events like the demolition derby, the Aussie Kingdom (a show featuring Australian animals), and the Monster Truck rally, which was added this year and will show again today at 1 p.m., seem to be doing the trick, said Ray Duda, event director. "I've never seen this many families here," said Duda, who has been working the fair for 45 years, twice as president.

"Everyone's having a very good time and the weather's great," said Bruce Shallcross, fair superintendent, noting the weekend's sunny skies.

On Sunday, Shallcross estimated the fair had drawn at least 15,000 people since opening Friday.

"We're trying to do new things," said Shallcross, "but still keep what makes the Three-County Fair the Three-County Fair."

Indeed, agriculture is still a major part of the fair, which also features carnival rides, vendors and food. The pig races remain one of the most popular events at the fair and the fairgrounds feature two open barns dedicated to agricultural history and regional awards for talents such as canning, produce cultivation, crafting latch-hook rugs, photography, sewing, floral arranging and scarecrow construction. An outdoor museum of turn-of-the-century farm engines and machinery popped and sputtered a metal combustion symphony of gassy clanks in the midday sun.

Animals are also a major component. In addition to the animals from Down Under who made their first appearance in Northampton this year, hundreds of regional livestock also strutted their stuff on the fairgrounds.

"I love the chickens," said Renee Wetstein, 46, of Northampton. "They have so many different varieties, brown, white, some that are even kind of green. They just amaze me, but I'm a city girl."

Wetstein attended the fair with her son, Daniel Dietz, 15. The two have been going to the fair regularly for at least four years. But the mother-son team attend the fair more to be seen than to check out what the ag-fest has to offer.

Dietz preforms yo-yo tricks at the fair for donations to The Smile Train, an international nonprofit that trains and funds doctors in Third World countries to perform corrective surgeries for cleft palates. In the four years Dietz has been yo-yoing for The Smile Train at events that include the fair, he has raised more than $20,000 for the cause.

"I saw a brochure (for The Smile Train) one day. I looked at the pictures (of children with cleft palates) and I wanted to help," Dietz said. "I thought #I'm OK with a yo-yo,' so I thought I could use that to help."

As he talked, Dietz whipped his red yo-yo with lime-green string around into whirling geometric patterns that appeared to almost knot, but instead slipped seamlessly into new triangular shapes.

"A lot of people are shocked when I do this," Dietz said. "They ask me how do I do it, and I just say #I practice,' because it's the truth."

Shallcross, the superintendent who has been working at the fair for 25 years, attributes the Three-County Fair's enduring success to its ability to change with the times, but still hold onto the farming tradition that gave birth to the festival in 1817.

"We're always trying to make the people happy," Shallcross said with a smile. "It's a good fair."