Engineers Bringing Soap Box Racing Back Again

kpw10 writes "It appears that soap box racing has made a recent comeback as traditional races are getting big attention again. But at the same it is also adapting itself into a more modern engineering challenge: pro car designers from companies like Audi and BMW just last week raced in California's Extreme Gravity Series, with super aerodynamic racers reaching speeds of 44mph. Meanwhile on the east coast, industrial designers and artists competed in the Durham "Fall Classic Soap Box Invitational" with converted lazy boy recliners and enormous eight foot wheeled vehicles. I hope this is just a sign of what's to come!" We have come a long way since the 1930's.

Comments

CMU does this every year.

[SRMoore]

I don't really have a link to anything, but CMU has been having it's "buggy" race for several decades.

Re:CMU does this every year.

[amper]

Here.

Ah, Sweepstakes...the search for the smallest, lightest girls ad the biggest, strongest guys...the scrambles for rubber bits to be analyzed in the lab...

It can be a very dangerous sport.

[CyricZ]

Indeed, this sort of racing can be very dangerous. Perhaps that's why it is such a thrill for participants and the racers.

I recall watching one of these races sometime in the 1940s. Even using relatively primitive technology, some the participants were able to build cars that were quite fast. Unfortunately, I also witnessed a rather gruesome accident.

As anyone who has seen one of the races knows, the participants start at the top of a hill and race downwards. Now, along the track hill there were a number of trees. This poor fellow got going very fast, but somehow lost control about 3/4 of the way down the hill. His car veered towards a tree, and he wasn't able to get out in time.

Indeed, he hit the tree, and his car was demolished. Unfortunately for him, the tree went right between his legs, and violently damaged his genitals. The races were quickly cancelled, and the paramedics arrived.

While I didn't actually see him after his accident, I talked to some of the men who had helped him out. They were completely thrown aback by the injuries he had sustained to his manhood. One of them even threw up he was so disgusted by what he had seen.

I hope that these days they're taking more care to make the vehicles safe, or at least race them in safer areas.

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[Tony Hoyle]

I think I can speak for all of slashdot when I say:

OUCH!!

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[NanoGator]

"I recall watching one of these races sometime in the 1940s. Even using relatively primitive technology, some the participants were able to build cars that were quite fast. Unfortunately, I also witnessed a rather gruesome accident."

If you don't mind me asking, how old are you? I promise, I'm not setting up a joke or anything like that. But if you're 70/80 years old, I'm really curious what you think of how times have changed in the last few decades.

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[peterjhill2002]

I'm a bit younger than 45, but for me, after thinking of CMU, the next thing was "The Little Rascals" I got to watch the reruns when I was little (in the '70s). Their soap box racer, for those who did not see it, featured a dog on a tread mill chasing a cat... I might not remember correctly, but I would not put it past them to have had a turbo mode where the showed the cat a mouse and had a dog chasing a cat chasing a mouse for their engine...

As Edith would have said, "Those were the days"

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[lucas teh geek]

who else but a moderator of course

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[asoap]

I have no clue what it is that you tried to say. Apparently you think that we should encourage people to do dangerous things or atleast to make sure that those things stay as dangerous as possible in order to facilitate your version of evolution? So that the fittest can survive? You do know that is only one aspect of evolution? By encouraging people to do something like rock climibing in order to seperate the wheat from the chaff is ludicrous. It could be a very large possibility that people who can survive something like plauges might be the next step in evolution. It might not be the survival of the strongest muscles, but the survival of the strongest immune systems.

So in that case, let's give everyone AIDS and let those of us with the strongest immune systems stay alive! How does that sound?

While it is true that in formula one the level of safety does allow people to do stupid things like push other cars off the road. The truth is though, now people go off the track into huge run off areas. BEFORE people would push cars off the track and they would run into the tree that would be RIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE ROAD. When you look back at to how people used to race, you wonder how the hell they stayed alive.

I've heard of stories of the Pre-war races when the cars had no seatbelts. They hadn't been invented yet. Instead they used hand grips beside the seats. I believe it was the story of Nuvolari who was racing when he raced over a bump and the mechanics hand grips ripped off and he went flying. He landed on the back of the car. The driver, Nuvolari grabbed him by his pant leg with one hand, and kept on steering with the other. He wouldn't stop the car! Racing was that important. That's insane! Are you saying that we should go back to that?

I say let's keep making racing safer. I sure as hell enjoy racing, and I always get a rush out of it. I don't see how one couldn't. But I really don't __WANT__ to die nor do I want to make things more dangerous to make things more interesting.

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[coaxial]

The whole idea of racing is there's meant to be a penalty for getting it wrong.

Really? I thought the whole idea of racing was seeing who was the fastest. I mean, race officials don't break the legs of the losers at a track meet.

Silly me.

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[dj245]

I'm late. but I run the website for the UMO/MMA coaster car. We design these cars to crash. They often hit things. Very often they spin out (many cars have the driver sitting on the rear axle with no weight on the front tyres). Our car is perfectly safe with a great roll cage, 4 point harness, the frame has multiple redundant load paths, and the bumper is designed to collapse nicely and dissipate the energy. I only wish they had provisions for keeping the crowd a little safer.

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[GregWebb]

Ratzenberger and Senna both died at Imola, not Spa.

And how?
* Ratzenberger spun and damaged his rear wing, but didn't go in to get it checked. Next lap it failed at speed and he went straight on into a wall at speed.

* Senna had been running for several laps behind a pace car that was far, far too slow for the job (Opel Vectra), which causes a drop in tyre pressures and consequently ride height - critical in F1 as the cars run high profile, low-pressure tyres so a low pressure can cause a major change in ride height. The car was designed to run active suspension (which runs stably at low ride heights) but had to change to passive due to a late rule change, meaning the car wasn't fully stable. On the first lap at full speed he hit a bump in a high-speed corner and crashed, and a piece of the suspension came off and penetrated his helmet - a freak accident.

In any case, neither accident was by any means fully attributable to the circuit.

Re:Honestly.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a hobby. Practicality has never been a requirement of hobbies. Fishing for sport and collecting figurines may be deemed impractical by some, but those are hobbies. Hobbies bring enjoyment to those who take them up, and certainly not all hobbies are for all people. To me, blasting down a hill in a lightweight, aerodynamic toy sounds like a blast.

Not last week...

[Quarters]

"...just last week raced in California's Extreme Gravity Series..."

The Extreme Gravity series happened the first week in September. Check the date on the byline of the linked article.

Cyclists do this regularly

[richg74]

In the end the fastest gravity racer was the Volvo entry, which hit 54 mph.

This sounds pretty fast, but road racing cyclists routinely achieve faster downhill speeds. I'm no Lance Armstrong, but I've gone down steep hills at 55-60 mph.

The difference is that a two-wheeled vehicle can negotiate turns at higher speeds than a four-wheeled one, because the two-wheeled vehicle turns by leaning. So it doesn't have to deal with anything like the same "sideways" forces at the tire / pavement interface.

I remember a couple of years ago watching some Tour de France footage with a (non-cycling) friend. It was one of the mountain stages. He asked, "Why do they have support motorcycles and cars?" I said, "Because the cars can't keep up going downhill through the curves."

Re:Cyclists do this regularly

[Tomfrh]

How did you do 75mph on a bike?

Rubber Bowl!

[Southpaw018]

Yeah baby, Derby Downs, right next to the Rubber Bowl. Ahh, the memories of growing up in Akron and reading books about our fair city, the Rubber Capitol of the World.


....yeah, I'm glad I live in DC now.

only up to certain pt it seems, then opp is true

[somewhere in AU]

local perf car mag did technical measurements on track of fast m/bike vs fast car and while lap times where within a whisker of each other on this particular circuit it's WHERE they were faster and slower that showed interesting things.

cut to the chase: car was FASTER IN CORNERS than bike, and bike ACCELERATED faster in straights so they had different advantages in diff places.

I've driven the circuit the mag used and you could setup a high speed drift in off camber bend with a good car (AWD Turbo GT-R) that you would NEVER contemplate/do on a bike (been riding 25+ yrs).

So your m/bike faster in "normal" road situation up to a point but cars actually faster and faster capable, in corners.

cheers!

Oh, great.

[game kid]

First I had to deal with reality shows...now I have to watch running public speakers too.

Modded Funny???

[Zevon 2000]

Granted, "Informative" isn't quite right, and "Interesting" doesn't come close. Maybe "Insightful"? But speaking as a male with genitalia, this comment, while worthy, is certainly *NOT* funny.

I mean, I know here at /. we don't all get the opportunity to actually use the genitalia as intended as often as we might like, but that doesn't make it funny!

Do all derby's have hot babes with shaving cream?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in love with derby babe.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47167068@N00/59197733 /in/set-1280245/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47167068@N00/59198319 /in/set-1280245/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47167068@N00/59198347 /in/set-1280245/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/47167068@N00/59198403 /in/set-1280245/

"San Francisco Illegal Soapbox Derby"

[billstewart]

Boingboing recently had an article pointing to a Flickr Photo Set about the Bernal Heights Illegal Soapbox Derby. Lots of silly cars, and the one rule is that every car is required to have a beer holder. Usually Halloween, sometimes other weekends as well.

Re:only up to certain pt it seems, then opp is tru

[usrusr]

cars certainly have far more room between starting to lose grip and completely losing control (and road cycles are completely all or nothing in this aspect) but there's another important difference between bikes and cars:

bikes can move their center of mass closer to the sides of the roads because they are not as wide as cars, allowing for a wider curve radius in the same corner. this makes a lot more difference on the narrow streets typical for tour de france downhills than on a wide racing track.

think of the children.

[calambrac]

Aye, right, you sound like a regular mama's boy. Raced cars at 160? What'd you drive, a pinto? My foot won't let off the gas of my Ferrari at anything less than 200 (even in neighborhoods!). Bikes on public roads? Why, I bike on some private roads - which happen to be on a military artillery range! Scuba dived below 60m? Might as well just be dipping your toe in. Hell, I can hold my breath to 100m while I'm hunting for sharks! You climb rocks, I climbed Everest with only a single Sherpa (who I left behind at 8,000m) and my bare hands and feet. You kayak whitewater, I do that too, but without a paddle and with lead weights tied to my ankles! Rugby is a fun game (for girls and homosexuals), and jiu-jitsu is Japanese for "slap fighting" (yes, I speak Japanese, as well as 43 other languages. I am the last remaining speaker for 16 distinct dialects). Instead of all that pussy stuff I wrestle gorillas that I've loaded up with steroids and bred to be super-intelligent, usually with an arm tied behind my back, sometimes blindfolded.

All women want to have sex with me (which means my ability to maintain an erection for up to 3 weeks at a time, with only an hour of downtime in between, really comes in handy), and all men want to be me (which they someday can, thanks to my extensive genetics research... did I mention that I'm a geneticist, as well as a nuclear physicist, meteorologist, and concert pianist? I also wrote an operating system called Calambracix that is used, interestingly enough, to run candy factories).

You would think that with all I've accomplished, I'd be a bit arrogant, but I'm actually very humble (possibly the most humble of anyone), as is mandated by the spiritual laws of Calambracism (a religion that I founded and, incidentally, am a primary spiritual figure of). It's therefore disappointing to me to hear you brag about your personal exploits as if they should be an example to the rest of the world. Considering how unimpressive your feats are, it would be most disappointing if a young child were exposed to the notion that they could settle for a life like yours. If you were humble like me, you would recognize your inferiority and hide your head in shame, never speaking in this forum again.

Clearly you have not seen...

[TheStonepedo]

bicycle drifting. Parent was talking about bicycles, not motorbikes. Despite the fact that you may never contemplate doing such maneuvers on a (motor?)bike, I'm certain the folks who race motorcycles on ice tracks put quite a lot of though into two-wheeled drifting. I myself wouldn't go out drifting on bicycles because a drift gone awry would be "crashing" every time rather than "spinning out" then recovering most times.

Oberursel - home of the soap box derby

[hughk]

The town of Oberursel in Germany, about 10 miles from Frankfurt was the place where the place where the first Soap Box Derby took place in 1904. Baring the odd little incident like WW2, they have been happening there ever since. They could do extreme gravity as the town lies just underneath the Taunus range of hills. Since the big one Grosser Feldberg is about 2600 feet high with a highway to the top, they could have used that, but luckily common sense prevailed and they used the gentler slope through the town instead. Even cyclists have problems on the big hill due to brake fade and a lovely hairpin.

As well as the more serious entrants, there have been mobile divans, bath tubs, etc. Unusually for Germany, you don't need to have any special license to do this, just to pass the pre-race safety inspection.

Extreme?

[Lars T.]

Bobby Car racing is extreme! Google Trans

Over 60 mph without any aerodynamics.