By sunup, many of the vendors and exhibits had gone, too.

CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune Jack Karni (left) and James Wallner carried a horse from the carousel as they packed up rides and attractions from the Fun Zone at the San Diego County Fair.

By midmorning, the cars and trucks hauling away stands and potted plants filled the fairgrounds' main avenue. In the midway, workers loaded rides onto semitrailers.

It takes days and weeks for the fair exhibits and attractions to be set up. Yet many of them come down in a matter of hours.

“As soon as the people were gone, the food vendors began to pull out,” fair spokeswoman Kina Paegert said. “It's amazing how everything comes down.”

San Diego County Fair by the numbers The San Diego County Fair operates on a large scale. Here's a look at some of the numbers: 13,000: Fried Twinkies sold 20,000: Deep-fried Oreo cookies sold 3,190: People hired by the fairgrounds, vendors and ride operators 51,992: Entries judged at the fair 1,490,000: Rides taken, with Crazy Mouse as most popular $5,670,000: Gross ride ticket sales, not including pre-sales 1,892 tons: Amount of waste, including 1,360 tons recycled or composted. SOURCE: San Diego County Fair

The 22-day fair, the largest event in San Diego County, and the sixth-largest fair in the country, had its highest attendance this year: 1,265,997 visitors. The next highest year was 2004, when 1,250,320 attended the fair over 22 days. Last year, 1.2 million people came. This year, the average number of visitors per day was 58,457. The day with the most people was Sunday, when 85,449 people came through the gates.

This Sunday, the fairgrounds hands over the property to the Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, which rents the facility for 10 weeks of racing season.

Flower beds were being pulled out and the entire garden show removed and returned to its natural state: a parking lot.

“That tear-down takes the longest, seven to eight days, to complete,” said Katie Phillips, the fair's exhibits manager.

In the AgriFair building, Bertha the pig and her 15 piglets had left, and a bulldozer was rearranging the dirt that she and other animals had been lying on.

The building soon will house more than 100 racehorses, Phillips said. It and two other buildings had to be ready for the Thoroughbred Club by 8 a.m. today.

Nearby, in the Celebration of Heroes Theme Exhibit, a father and son were trying to revive a 1941 General Motors fire engine so they could drive it out to the lot and onto a trailer. Its battery was dead.

The engine, Campo's first, is used in parades and stored at the Campo ranch of Cliff Northcote, 60. This was the first time it was displayed at the fair.

At the Design in Wood Show, artist Alexandre Safonov was tightening the straps that held the large wood sculptures to a trailer.

His “Wine, Chipmunks and Song,” a rosewood table and two chairs, had been on display with a price tag of $22,000.

Safonov wasn't sure where he would be taking the furniture.

“I have a couple of customers who are interested,” he said.

The San Diego Fine Wood Workers began setting up the Design in Wood Show on May 20, said assistant coordinator Ron Rossi.

It takes just one day to take it all apart, he said.

“We've got it down to a science.”

Elizabeth Fitzsimons: (619) 542-4577; elizabeth.fitzsimons@uniontrib.com