Last Saturday, Valentina Ross arrived at the parking lot of Public School 111 in the Baychester section of the Bronx looking for redemption. Her opponents were spread out all over the pavement. The other 30 Soapbox Derby teams, competitive elementary and middle school students and their teachers, wore matching shirts and participated in the gravity-powered ride. He lost in the final heat of last year's race, missing out on the chance to represent PS 83 at the Soapbox Derby World Championship in Akron, Ohio. She was determined not to let that happen again.
“I feel guilty,” said Valentina, 13, who lives in the Morris Park neighborhood. But she had prepared herself that morning by doing yoga and running up the hill before gathering with her team.
Last Saturday's race was the culmination of months of effort at the Northeast Bronx school, where students designed and built soapbox cars for a chance to compete in this summer's international championships.
Derby racing was also a manifestation of District 11's science curriculum. District 11 is one of the few districts in New York City that has turned to the soapbox to attract and ultimately get students excited about going to school and being in school.
Building cars allowed students and teachers to take a break from their books and apply physics and aerodynamics concepts to test drives in the hallways and cafeterias.
Saturday's race will see one winning team advance to the competition, officially known as the FirstEnergy All-American Soap Box Derby World Championship, which draws nearly 400 competitors from around the world. .
The rules are deceptively simple. Teams drive their cars (checked to exacting specifications by the organizers) to the start line, which is located on a gentle hill off Baychester Avenue. Once the driver slides into the cockpit, the start gate opens and gravity does the rest. On a 50-yard track, the car reaches speeds of 29 miles per hour.
This competition is designed like a college basketball tournament bracket. If a driver wins, he advances. If she loses, she goes home. Each heat has her two races. After the first race, competitors change wheels and start in opposite lanes of the track. This is an effort to eliminate material superiority. The driver with the fastest total time advances.
Formal soapbox derby racing emerged in the 1930s after newspaper photographer Myron Scott spotted a group of boys riding in a junked car on the streets of Dayton, Ohio. In 1934, Mr. Scott pitched his Chevrolet in local youth races. The company sponsored the National Soapbox Derby until the 1970s, and the contest has been held nearly every summer since.
Champions have come from all over the country, including Clearwater, Florida, upstate New York, and Bowling Green, Kentucky, but New York City has never crowned a national soapbox derby champion.
It's not a cheap sport. Soapbox His car costs $1,800. Official kit containing lesson plans, basic parts and associated race fees. (Teams are encouraged to customize their outer shells.) The Bronx school also helps pay for the winner's travel to the championship race.
In 2022, newly appointed District 11 STEM Coordinator Claudine Conover introduced Soapbox Races as part of the Bronx curriculum. Only 12 teams participated that year. Last year the number of vehicles increased to his 46, and this year he has over 50 racers from 31 schools competing, and interest continues to grow. The Bronx's 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th wards also rely on Mrs. Conover to run their Derby schools.
School-sponsored races have also been held in Staten Island and Brooklyn, and many participants credit Patricia Lockhart, a former science teacher from Staten Island who incorporated soapboxing into the city's curriculum in 2015.
“Once you start, you're hooked,” says Lockhart, who is currently the New York City director of the National Soapbox Derby.
Building the derby car is woven into the ethos of Leaders of Tomorrow, a middle school in the Bronx that has suffered from violence and chronic absenteeism in the past. Not only is this an engaging way to teach aerodynamics and physics; The school's principal, Joseph Biernat, said students on the soapbox team “are more likely to come to school because there's something else positive going on.”
The leader of the Leaders of Tomorrow soapbox team is science teacher Ronald Washington Jr. He said many of the students have dreams of playing basketball in college and beyond, and was impressed by how enthusiastically they engaged in soapbox sessions when they were supposed to be in the gym after school. .
Washington, a baseball player himself who tore his ACL while playing at Bronx Community College, emphasizes the importance of singing multiple songs to his students. His message is not to abandon the game they love, but to continue exploring new opportunities.
“This is more than just basketball,” he told them, and they all participated. However, after the first few wins, the Leaders of Tomorrow lost in the third round.
“It was very competitive,” said Jeremih Gale, 12, one of the team's drivers. “And it was just fun that day.”
One of the unfortunate aspects of soapbox racing is that while building and testing a car is a team effort, only one person can drive it. On race day, the rest of the team serves as the pit crew. Adjust the steering, change wheels, push and pull the car up the hill to the start line, and meet the racers at the finish line.
Each car must weigh exactly 240 pounds to start. Once the driver is in the cockpit (students can weigh about 100 pounds), the team weights the car to meet a threshold. Even without a driver, it can be quite taxing.
Manav Lal, 11, a member of PS 87's pit crew, was ready. “I do 20 push-ups every day,” he said.
Teammate Halvel Williams also said he was ready. “You've got muscles,” he said. A ten year old boy flexed his biceps.
On Saturday, Manav and Halbel stood at the finish line holding a small checkered flag. They wore coordinating red racing suits. Their teacher, Dwayne Austin, also wore the uniform.
After the first race, they followed driver Jaden Casanova as he sped away, ignoring the time sensors. Together with their teacher, they returned to the starting line pushing a car decorated in honor of Lightning McQueen, the main character from the movie “Cars.''
Although committed, the team was repelled after the first round.
Meanwhile, PS 83 driver Valentina dominated the competition early on. She advanced to the third round and faced off against PS 68. This school was the one that beat her in the finals last year.
After the first race of the heat, Valentina jumped out of the car at the finish line and ran up the climb of the second race as if in anger. But she was just focused.
So was PS 68's first driver, Jayden Trapp, a fifth-grader who wanted to be an engineer like his father. Jaden's favorite subject was math, and he never missed practice, said his teacher Craig Fogarty. And his mother, Elva, said Jaden barely slept the night before the race.
“I needed to get him to bed early,” she said, explaining that her son was the type of kid who would break something “just to fix it.”
Both drivers entered the machine with practiced form. Valentina appeared to be one with her own car as she drove a blue derby car with yellow lightning bolt stickers. In his shiny burgundy car, Jaden looked like a pilot ready to take on the wind.
The gate opened, the crew members cheered, and the pair hurtled down the hill. It was a close call, but Jaden won over Valentina, who was disappointed but said she wasn't mad. Jayden's burgundy soapbox car won and will earn a chance to compete for the championship in Akron this July.
