“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to loose.” ~ Yoda
We were driving highway 231 from Bowling Green to Scottsville when we passed a park and Doug said, “Look! There’s a drag strip.” (I might be paraphrasing, but that’s close.) Having spent plenty of time at the drag strip in Clay City as a teen, I knew he was sort of right but not exactly. It was a drag strip of sorts, but drag strips for motor cars are flat and the lanes wide. This strip had a hill and wasn’t all that wide. I floated the idea that it was a soapbox car strip. Today, we were driving past the park again when – lo and behold – I was right, as we saw soapbox cars gaining speed down the slope. Doug quickly turned the car into the park, we grabbed cameras, and before long, we’d struck up conversations with a parent and some of the young racers. Let me tell you, it was awesome. We learned a lot about soapbox car racing in 20 minutes. The parent we talked to was the mother of last year’s national winner. It’s held annually in Akron, Ohio. The National Soapbox Derby winner’s car is placed in the soapbox Derby Museum, also in Akron. That’s right. You win the national title, you lose your car to the museum. Weird, huh? Bowling Green’s track, maintained by the Bowling Green Kiwanis Club, is ranked third in the nation for quality. Digging in deeper we learned there are soapbox derby clubs in Madisonville, Hopkinsville, and Bowling Green. There may be more, but those are the clubs we found easily. The racers compete by weight divisions in one of three classes. This is a uniquely American sport for young people that started during the depression and it’s still quietly competing in small communities around the country nearly a hundred years later. You can learn more about it in this Smithsonian Magazine article. Doug and I were like two kids in a candy store by the time we left. Day made.
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