The surprising complexity of soapbox derby racing | Column

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 the neighborhood—first on a Big Wheel tricycle and later on my banana-seat bicycle. I think that by the time I was 12, I’d taken about five Big Wheels out of commission with excursions down steep driveways, e-brake turns and other shenanigans. In fact, I had such a passion for racing that I organized my own Big Wheel races, taking two wins out of three events.

My young son, Ian, shares my automotive obsession, but with a twist. What does he want to be when he grows up? A racing mechanic. 

Now, I can use tools; I just don’t really care to work on cars. It doesn’t give me any joy to fix a mechanical problem. My son, though, thinks it’s the greatest thing in the world. He thinks Legos are awesome, requests Craftsman tools for his birthday and Christmas, and would rather watch our car get serviced than zip around the track. In fact, in his words, watching cars race is absolutely “boring.”

A few years ago, I came up with the great idea of building a soapbox derby car with my son. It all made sense on paper, especially since the All American Soap Box Derby is held in Akron, Ohio, just 30 minutes north of us. 

My plan was simple: Buy a Stock-class car kit and build an entry with Ian. I remember telling myself, “This thing should be easy to build since it doesn’t have a motor.” Those words seem so funny now.

I gave the kit to Ian for Christmas last year, and we went to work right away. During the rest of the winter and into the spring, we worked together in our dimly lit basement. I figured the lack of lighting added to the DIY mood.

If we’d followed the kit instructions and just put all the pieces together, the actual building process wouldn’t have taken more than a week. However, every time I hopped online to do some research, I learned a new trick that would make our racer faster. There were tips about properly sanding the wooden floor and then waxing it until it shined. There was advice for polishing the axles to a mirrorlike finish. 

The experts even recommended sending out the axles so they could be properly measured and marked for setup points. And since the rules allow the soapbox to weigh up to 200 pounds with driver, there were special weights to install, and their placement depended on the track itself. I’m being totally serious about all of this.

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The good news is that, despite all this painstaking effort that dragged out a seemingly simple process into one that took months, Ian actually enjoyed the whole process. He felt like he was really becoming a mechanic, and this made it fun for me. I wanted Ian to learn about the building process, not just hand the tools to me. 

I also know that we are never going to be the best at this. There are many dads who are much more dedicated and fanatical about soapbox derby than I am. They’re also much better engineers. 

As Ian and I went along, the process continued to be fantastic. When we were done, Ian could actually disassemble the car and rebuild it himself. To be honest, he even corrected me a couple of times on the build instructions when I got lost. 

Before we showed up at any events, we invested in some basic alignment tools. One tool ensures the wheelbase is equal from side to side. Another uses triangulation to find the center point on each axle. Then, like a real race car pit crew, we used string to make sure that the suspension was perfectly plumb. 

When soapbox season arrived in June, we had a completely built and aligned car that was ready for its first race. I wanted Ian to have a little seat time, so I took him over to our office/race shop. Part of the driveway has a bit of a grade to it, which I felt would be perfect for simulating the Derby’s downhill conditions. 

Let me make a long story short. Thanks to my mechanical ineptitude and the steeper-than-expected gradient, a loose locking nut sent Ian and our soapbox derby racer on a very exciting adventure. A cable let go on Ian’s fourth run, rendering the brakes useless. The car went careening out of control, hit a curb, launched into the air, and landed on some grass. My wife, Holley, caught the whole thing on video, but I fear posting it on YouTube because child services might come after me.

After collecting the car—and our son—we assessed the damage: The racer suffered a shattered plastic shell and a torn-up floorboard. Six months of work had gone down the drain. This was all good news for Ian, though: Now he could start the building process all over again. Unlike me, he wasn’t depressed by the situation. 

We went back to work and rebuilt the car. We even addressed a few flaws in the original build. Plus, a good friend offered to tweak our setup even more. His son and daughter race in soapbox derby, and he has those fancy tools used to measure toe and camber. When he asked me if I wanted an indoor or outdoor setup, I was reminded that any kind of racing can be taken to the nth degree, even if it doesn’t involve an engine. (And if you’re wondering, I flipped a coin and chose the outdoor setup.)

Our first event will now take place this winter at an indoor event—so much for having the perfect setup. We aren’t really intending or expecting to win, but hopefully Ian can learn a little bit from each outing so he, too, can get closer to achieving his dream of being a race mechanic. 

Of course, while building the soapbox derby car I also got to indulge one of my motorsports passions—paint schemes. Yes, Ian’s car now carries the same lightning bolt and Sahlen’s livery found on our Mazda race cars. 

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