STANWOOD — Chase Greenough, 11, put his head down and went for the win.
The Camano Island boy’s green car zipped down 276th Street NW, inching ahead of the racer alongside of him. When Chase’s car drifted too close to the curb, he straightened his path and sealed the victory.
Although his time wasn’t fast enough to advance toward the finals, Chase had a blast during the first Stanwood-Camano Soap Box Derby.
“It has a lot of adrenaline to it, it happens so fast,” Chase said. “It’s just pure fun.”
On Saturday, hundreds of people lined the sidewalks west of the Stanwood Community and Senior Center to watch 40 soap box derby cars race down the hillside.
Madison Hughes, 10, of Camano Island, won the derby’s stock division. Zachary Placzek, 12, also of Camano Island, won the super stock division. Both will be offered trips to compete at the national soapbox derby championships in July in Akron, Ohio.
“It was a great race,” said race announcer Ed Bednarczyk, a voice actor and real estate agent on Camano Island. “There was a little suspense at the end there, and it was a great race. We couldn’t have had a more successful first race, I’ll tell you that.”
Each heat in the derby consisted of two races. After the first race of each heat, the derby cars were loaded onto a trailer at the bottom of the course and taken back to the starting line. To ensure fairness, the wheels on the competing cars were switched, and the racers switched lanes as well.
Racers with the best combined times from the two races in their heats advanced deeper into the tournament-style derby.
“It’s pretty neat, I always heard about these growing up,” said James Palmer, 27, watching the race from outside his mother-in-law’s house.
Palmer, a fan of NASCAR and Formula 1 racing, was impressed by how the young drivers used each lane of the course to their advantage. Drivers stuck to the outside edge of the northern lane, which produced most of the day’s wins. In the southern lane, the drivers would hug the inside edge to get past a rough spot in the road.
Palmer’s brother-in-law, KC Collins, 26, wanted to try it for himself.
“It would be fun,” Collins said. “I’d put a lot of lead weights in mine. It wouldn’t have been a sanctioned race, but it would have been fun.”
Nikki Ramey, 15, of Stanwood, usually races quarter-midget cars at Skagit Speedway. This year, she couldn’t get a car to race, so she entered the soap box derby instead.
“I probably need more of a fix being in a car, but I’ll be OK for right now,” Nikki said.
Months of hard work went into preparing for the soap box derby.
The young drivers built their cars with help from parents and mentors. One of Chase Greenough’s mentors was Joe Eppig, 76, of Camano Island, whose wife works in real estate with Chase’s mom.
“The kid is like 11 years old going on 15,” Eppig said. “He was a real pleasure to work with.”
The race is over, but Chase doesn’t want to get rid of his car.
He wants to save it, “as a landmark in my life,” he said.
“If you ever race, just have fun,” Chase said.
Reporter Scott Pesznecker: 425-339-3436 or spesznecker@heraldnet.com.
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