[5.2] Camptown Races...Doo Dah!!

We finished off a big week--we've already been to Oktoberfest and had the Vegas trip--with Fozzie, Lisa and I headed out to Fremont Avenue on Saturday for the Red Bull Soapbox Race that made a local stop about three blocks from our house. The event is held on a fairly regular basis around the country and encourages creativity and engineering, but this is not your Boy Scout event to earn a merit badge, this is serious stuff. Mostly adult teams compete and have to build a vehicle that is gravity-powered and weighs no more than 176 lbs. In addition, teams are rated on the look of the vehicle, the speed, and overall creativity, which meant most teams did a short skit before launching the cart into the course. I think there was some alcohol involved prior to some of these skits. Needless to say, this event had it all: Thrills, spills, and a flying pickle. The course was also outfitted with video screens and speakers so one could follow the action throughout the whole 800 meter course (you can see the Seattle Sonics Sasquatch entry on the screen). And just to lend an air of credibility to the proceedings, judges included Olympian Amanda Beard, Seattle Sonic Nick Collison, and how can you have a soapbox derby without Sir Mix-a-lot as a judge.



The event started with the pace car taking off. The only motorized car in the race, the pace car was the Red Bull NASCAR entry. It was followed over the next 2.5 hours by 37 entries that ranged from the hysterical to the ludicrous to the outright pathetic. I'll start with the winning team, who recreated the best TV show of all time featuring a large, black man with a mohawk. That's right, the A-team. Their opening skit had B.A. Baracus (the caucasian Mr. T in this case) and the rest of the team foiling evil doers. Then Murdock jumped into the "van" and sped to the bottom of the hill. There was a local newswoman at the bottom interviewing each contestant. The A-team's response when asked how it went? "I love it when a plan comes together".

The course was a bit difficult for some of the teams to negotiate. After the team's skit, each was required to send the car and driver(s) down a ramp and into an immediate 90-degree berm before the long stretch down Fremont which was broken up by two "S" turns along the way. About six or so teams failed to make it past the first turn. The train below was one of the successful ones. The team from Anytime Fitness was not. They lost a wheel coming down the entry ramp, but that did not deter the driver as you can see.

There were fast cars (you can tell how fast each car was going by how blurry it is) such as "Stifflers Mom Presents: Miss Red Bull"...

And not so fast cars...

I failed to get a picture of "The Crapsters" which was a large toilet bowl with the driver inside, dressed in all brown. Their skit consisted of shooting toilet paper off rolls into the air. Now that's creativity. But I leave you with my personal favorite, the team from Arizona that comprised a zookeeper that always wanted to ride one of the zoo rhinos, but is discouraged by his superiors, so this was his answer: