By Will Nonnamaker
When I was a kid, all I seemed to care about was racing cars. I loved going to the track with my dad. I enjoyed watching the cars zip around Summit Point’s Carousel, dive into Mid-Ohio’s Keyhole, or run up through Turn 5 at Road Atlanta.
At home, I would hoon around…
More pics of the car please! And also, how old was Ian during this process?
I went to nationals twice, with a best finish of 7th nationally. The complexity when you hit national level is unreal. like all forms of racing, people spend thousands of dollars to shave off thousands of a second. It helps, as long as positioning and driving are spot on too. the masters cars are the ones that got seriously out of hand. the big money racers had wind tunnel tesing done on their cars.
On the opposite side of competition there's the Red Bull Soapbox Race, and the time Aston Martin made a serious joke:
Aren't these supposed to built and raced by kids? Or is it more of "I hired Burt Rutan and Scaled Composites to build this missile. My kids is simply ballast" type deals?
I raced BMX nationals at the Akron park where the derby track is/was, anyone know if there's still a BMX track there?. Remember the magnet cheater car of the early 70's?
In reply to Appleseed :
Driving is about 90% of the formula for winning. Reading the road, following the line, and staying smooth. This isn't the pinewood derby, the kits aren't really made for kids to assemble.
I seem to recall they had F1 teams build Soapbox Derby cars for charity.......they money they spent was eye watering.
In reply to Tom1200 :
I have memories of those running down the hill at the Goodwood Festival of speed but I can't find video proof now. It looks like they stopped after too many crashes in 2013 but brought them back for the last edition.
Here's a blurry video of 2007 though, the second race is pretty good but I bet the one guy was pretty sore the next day.
Edit - doesn't look like the video embed if working right now so here is a link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXdkalOTr3c&t=22s
I have to say, my first reaction to the title was, "you must be new to the subject of speed".
I've been around moderately high levels of racing in running and bicycles to very low levels of motorsports (sim, karts, ax). Speed always comes with a price tag attached.
AaronT said:I have to say, my first reaction to the title was, "you must be new to the subject of speed".
I've been around moderately high levels of racing in running and bicycles to very low levels of motorsports (sim, karts, ax). Speed always comes with a price tag attached.
As the old saying goes" Speed costs money, how fast do you want to go"
I have ALWAYS wanted to do this! ... Ever since I was a kid.
I'm not a kid any more...
My kids are not kids any more...
Maybe with my grandkids...
We raced for one season. I showed up with our car strapped down to my open utility trailer. The pro families had fully enclosed trailers with setups that rival stuff I've seen at Road Atlanta. We had fun, kiddo had fun, but there was no way we were taking home a trophy. The top families were dynastic, multiple generations of wins. The winning cars easily outpaced everyone else. Not knocking them, it just seemed like breaking in to be competitive was going to be a steep uphill push.
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