Off to the Races: Community Center Stages Soap Box Derby

RECREATION & LEISURE

By Randy B. Young
Correspondent

Finally, a traffic alert we can all feel good about. Cars were speedily racing around the parking lots at the Chapel Hill Community Center this past Sunday afternoon, but while engines did not growl, spectators roared. Tires did not squeal, but laughing children did.

And while no one sounded the call to “start your engines,” the crowd was certainly “revved” up at Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation’s first-ever soap box derby race on Sunday afternoon, fueled only by gravity and imagination.

“A soap box derby race is an exciting, gravity-powered event where participants race homemade, motorless cars down a sloped track,” a Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation flyer noted. “Built for speed and creativity, these small vehicles are typically crafted by kids—often with adult help—and emphasize engineering, design, and family fun competition.”

While a classic car show had originally been scheduled at the Chapel Hill Community Center, that concurrent event was postponed to a later date.

“Falling with style”

Derby rules stated that cars would have to have at least three wheels, without size, material, or weight limitation. Cars had to be maneuverable along a gently curved, gradual downhill course through pivot steering via another reliable mechanism. In addition, an effective braking method had to be operational, either through a pad or brake shoe or skid pads on the wheels.

Helmets were mandatory for all drivers and riders, and elbow and knee pads were also strongly encouraged.

The course plunged from a ramp near the Plant Road offices of Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation. It descended along a 300-foot course with various obstacles, including a “rabbit hole” (a narrowing of the track through an inflatable opening), a “bump” (a 4-inch tall ramp), and ripple road (part grass and part gravel) over the last 10 feet before the finish line.

Prizes were awarded to the three fastest cars over two official runs on the course, as well as to the two most creatively designed cars.

With gravity being constant for all race cars, racers had to focus on other elements of design to get an edge on the competition.

“A lot depends on the tires,” said Tres Wilson, who rode in “Wiener Takes All,” a derby car designed to look like a giant hot dog and bun. “We also have a suspension that helps on the bumps and stuff.”

Wilson’s was one of several vehicles that had also competed in August’s annual Kirby Derby in Raleigh.

Overall Winner Cass King raced the “Ponysaurus” soap box race car along the 300-foot downhill course in just 10.66 seconds to win top prize in Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation’s soap box derby. Photo by Randy B. Young.

Everyone’s a wiener

“Three had been in the Kirby Derby,” said Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Community Center supervisor Keith Dodson. “It was the ‘Wiener Takes All,’ car, the ‘Gone Fishing’ car, and the ‘Ponysaurus’ car.”

Winning the prize for most creative design (selected by Chapel Hill Parks and Recreation Executive Director Atuya Cornwell) was the “Car-burrito” car, designed like a burrito. Winning second place for creativity was the “Spiderman Car,” complete with driver Brantley Ladd, 4, costumed as the famous web-slinging superhero.

Atop the derby podium was the “Ponysaurus” car, driven by Cass King and featuring a Jurassic motif, which was the fastest car through the finish, crossing the line in just 10.66 seconds and besting cars with top speeds near 20 miles per hour.

In second place with a time of 11.7 seconds was Tres Wilson’s “Wiener Takes All” car; the “Golden Gazelle” soap box car took third place with an antlered crew of Gwennie Ayers and Ian Bouma.

Gwennie Ayers (left) and Ian Bouma (right) were all smiles in their “Golden Gazelle” soap box car, having placed third in Chapel Hill’s derby, held Sunday at the Chapel Hill Community Center. Photo by Randy B. Young.

Additionally, any car besting 10 miles per hour over the course was awarded a medal.

In addition to the “Golden Gazelle,” “Wiener Takes All,” (Tres Wilson, Avonlea Wilson, Michael Hobgood, and Brandon Quinones), and “Car-burrito,” other teams included the Maverick Ladd (5), “Ugly Dragon,” “Old Rotten” (Jimmy Kempter), “Gone Fishing,” Banana-mobile (Constantine Orces), and “Pink Tar Heel,” (Tara Thompson and Willow Thompson, 2).

“Willow is used to being in the being in the pilot seat,” said “Pink Tar Heel” fan Amier Alston.

Tres Wilson noted that the creative process is not a money-maker.

“Yeah, we’re losing money,” he said of the creation and maintenance of his team’s “Wiener Takes All” vehicle. “We customized the whole machine. The Kirby Derby race is themed every year, so we strip off the design and then tailor it to whatever, so this one has mixed metaphors”.

“We had a ‘Banana-grams’ car last year, so it was like this big yellow banana,” Wilson said.

“The second year that we’d been in (the Kirby Derby), it was the ‘Rat Pack’ car,” said Avonlea Wilson.

“…Because it was National Rat Day,” Tres Wilson said, laughing.

Going downhill

Dodson said the soapbox races would lay the groundwork for future derbies locally.

“This is the start of what we’re hoping for,” Dodson said, “to make it bigger and better. But if I had to change it for next week, we’d have food trucks out here: I’d have food trucks and more hay bales.”

Dodson said he also envisioned a pinewood derby similar to those staged by the Boy Scouts, where competitors carve and fashion race cars out of small wooden blocks.

“Hopefully next year we’ll have a both a soapbox derby and a pinewood derby going on, where the little cars are carved,” he said. “So we would set up a track for the pinewood derby, and then we’d also have the soap box derby here.”

Down the road

Next up for the Community Center will be the “Trunk or Treat” on Friday, October 24.

“That one’s mostly concentrating on the treats for the kids,” Dodson said, “but we’ll have a hot dog cart out for that too.”

Dodson said he was already looking ahead to Webster’s Rock the Hill indoor climbing competition in April 2026, after which the venerable old climbing wall at the Community Center will be dismantled and replaced with a new wall.

“We estimate that we’ll bring the wall down after Webster’s Rock the Hill in April,” he said. “This will be the last climb on Bill Webster’s original wall, and then the new wall will go up in six to eight weeks after that competition.”

The new wall will also add some long-anticipated improvements to the climbing facility.

“We’ll have some leads to anchor into the floor,” Dodson said. “There’ll be more of a fiberglass and wood instead of just old plywood painted, and it will be textured, plus the new rocks will be coming in.

“We’ll have lead climbing, more top-rope climbing, and we’ll have different overhangs, different features, and more of the fun climbs, like our pole climb. The crazier climbs that don’t really have to change will be on the other side, and then we don’t have to anchor in the floor anymore, which takes from the basketball court.”

In the meantime, soap box enthusiasts are already planning for the next derby.

“We have another car name that we might use,” said Ian Bouma, who piloted the “Golden Gazelle” with friend Gwennie Ayers. “There’s this thing at school where we might build another soap box car…and it’s going to be called the ‘Rainbow Radish.’”

Clearly, if motors aren’t already whirring, inventive minds are already in gear to excel where success depends not on engines but ingenuity.

Willow Thompson, 2, was all business, as she and Tara Thompson (not shown) helped steer the “Pink Tar Heel” soap box car to an impressive finish. Photo by Randy B. Young.

A Dartmouth College graduate, Randy B. Young first worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter in New Hampshire, then in communications at UNC for over 30 years. He maintained an award-winning newspaper feature covering Recreation and Exercise in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County. Retired and living in Chapel Hill, Randy continues to write for regional publications both locally and in New England, and his book, And the Stars Flew With Us, is available through Amazon and at independent bookstores. He coaches track at Chapel Hill High and has a photography business, Pierless (sic) Photography. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocalReporter.press