The 2016 Welton Soapbox Derby start line On Saturday 9th July, Welton village hosted its annual soapbox derby. Since the event’s re-establishment in 2014, I have been every year. Once again it was great fun and worthy of a blog post. Reviews from prior years are also available (2014 - 2015), why not have a read of those as well. And I’ll try not to repeat myself too much in this one.
Last year’s event was a wet one and whilst the weather on the morning of the 9th had threatened nastiness, by lunchtime the grey clouds had moved on and the temperature had picked up.
The village was packed with visitors and there were around 40 soapboxes preparing to race. This year’s derby followed the format that has worked so well (and been described by me) before.
I wandered around with my camera taking photos and marvelling at the imagination and efforts that the teams had gone to in order to design and then build their vehicles. But I made a school boy error and inadvertently deleted all the photos before I had downloaded them. Doh!
So dear reader whilst I had planned to share some of my images, I’ll just have to share those of others (my thanks to Jerome Davies & Matt Stokes).
Of all, a red E-Type Jag was my favourite. But there was a great “Herbie” Beetle, an orange General Lee, a black Dodge Charger, a Boaty McBoatface narrow boat and a patriotically themed canon too (face first down the hill for this wacky racer).
The hill in Welton village is quite steep and after a good shove off from a driver’s crew mates, some impressive speeds are achievable on the descent. Radar detection was used to capture top speeds and pit the contestants against each other for the fastest run. Whilst I was at the event, the fastest run recorded was 31mph.
After registering a speed though, the drivers were challenged to make a series of turns, one of which was really rather tight (it separated the true lunatics from the plain nutters). You see too fast through the speed trap and some hard braking would be necessary. Those that went too easy on the brakes were liable to crash and indeed some spectacular accidents did occur (see the event Facebook page for proof).
A slower descent would get a lower top speed but make the tight left-hander easier to negotiate and potentially get a faster time for the entire run. Strategy and tactics were the key for the more competitive types, some of whom took it way too seriously. By way of illustration, I watched one team of adults swapping their wheels and tyres from knobblies to slicks to try and up the performance (of their already professionally engineered soapbox). I think this crew won in the end, though for me that didn’t mean much.
There were plenty of youngsters having a go and, from my perspective, they are the ones that deserve the most recognition and praise. The kids were brave and were having a good time – taking part was more important than winning.
On the subject of kids, I was accompanied to the derby by my daughter and my two nieces. They were buoyed by the excitement of the show for a little while before boredom set in and they wandered off to make their own entertainment. For the adults in the Baldwin party, that meant we ended up spending as much time trying to find the junior family members as we did actually watching the racing. And frustratingly when we found the kids, they were getting fractious and wanted to go home.
So I ended up leaving before I was ready and before the competition was over but a good time was had nonetheless and I am looking forward to next year. And in contemplating 2017, I have an idea – maybe more racers could take part by effectively hiring a seat.
My thoughts are these:
On the 9th, I quite fancied having a go in a soapbox myself. But there was no real scope for me/anyone to do that unless they knew someone in a team.
As the derby is a fundraising event – maybe a soapbox or two could be available for hire for a single run (or a package of runs) with the money going to charity
Those wanting to hire a seat could register in advance like the other entrants and be allocated a time slot so that there was no nonsense on the day.
Photos care of Jerome Davies and Matt Stokes - click to enlarge
Last year’s event was a wet one and whilst the weather on the morning of the 9th had threatened nastiness, by lunchtime the grey clouds had moved on and the temperature had picked up.
The village was packed with visitors and there were around 40 soapboxes preparing to race. This year’s derby followed the format that has worked so well (and been described by me) before.
I wandered around with my camera taking photos and marvelling at the imagination and efforts that the teams had gone to in order to design and then build their vehicles. But I made a school boy error and inadvertently deleted all the photos before I had downloaded them. Doh!
So dear reader whilst I had planned to share some of my images, I’ll just have to share those of others (my thanks to Jerome Davies & Matt Stokes).
Of all, a red E-Type Jag was my favourite. But there was a great “Herbie” Beetle, an orange General Lee, a black Dodge Charger, a Boaty McBoatface narrow boat and a patriotically themed canon too (face first down the hill for this wacky racer).
The hill in Welton village is quite steep and after a good shove off from a driver’s crew mates, some impressive speeds are achievable on the descent. Radar detection was used to capture top speeds and pit the contestants against each other for the fastest run. Whilst I was at the event, the fastest run recorded was 31mph.
After registering a speed though, the drivers were challenged to make a series of turns, one of which was really rather tight (it separated the true lunatics from the plain nutters). You see too fast through the speed trap and some hard braking would be necessary. Those that went too easy on the brakes were liable to crash and indeed some spectacular accidents did occur (see the event Facebook page for proof).
A slower descent would get a lower top speed but make the tight left-hander easier to negotiate and potentially get a faster time for the entire run. Strategy and tactics were the key for the more competitive types, some of whom took it way too seriously. By way of illustration, I watched one team of adults swapping their wheels and tyres from knobblies to slicks to try and up the performance (of their already professionally engineered soapbox). I think this crew won in the end, though for me that didn’t mean much.
There were plenty of youngsters having a go and, from my perspective, they are the ones that deserve the most recognition and praise. The kids were brave and were having a good time – taking part was more important than winning.
On the subject of kids, I was accompanied to the derby by my daughter and my two nieces. They were buoyed by the excitement of the show for a little while before boredom set in and they wandered off to make their own entertainment. For the adults in the Baldwin party, that meant we ended up spending as much time trying to find the junior family members as we did actually watching the racing. And frustratingly when we found the kids, they were getting fractious and wanted to go home.
So I ended up leaving before I was ready and before the competition was over but a good time was had nonetheless and I am looking forward to next year. And in contemplating 2017, I have an idea – maybe more racers could take part by effectively hiring a seat.
My thoughts are these:
On the 9th, I quite fancied having a go in a soapbox myself. But there was no real scope for me/anyone to do that unless they knew someone in a team.
As the derby is a fundraising event – maybe a soapbox or two could be available for hire for a single run (or a package of runs) with the money going to charity
Those wanting to hire a seat could register in advance like the other entrants and be allocated a time slot so that there was no nonsense on the day.
Photos care of Jerome Davies and Matt Stokes - click to enlarge
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