Derby winner is king of Sprigg Street hill

Gravity propels Soap Box Derby drivers across the finish line

By Mark Bliss ~ Southeast Missourian

They crouched low in their red and blue cars. Helmets fastened on their heads, eyes fixed on the finish line, the young drivers raced downhill two cars at a time in the fourth annual Cape Girardeau Rotary Club Soap Box Derby.

By the time it was over Saturday -- six hours, 29 drivers and 60 races later -- 12-year-old Doug Froemsdorf of Jackson emerged the winner and posed for family pictures.

He'll now move on to compete in the national All-American Soap Box Derby in Akron, Ohio, in July.

Doug credited his victory to experience. He placed fourth two years ago and took second last year, barely losing in the championship race.

"It's pretty fun," said Doug after a long day of double-elimination racing. The track: a 900-foot-long section of North Sprigg Street between Blanchard Elementary School and the Bertling intersection.

"It's kind of cool too. You are going down on gravity," said Doug, who didn't lose a race all day.

Like the other drivers, Doug kept spinning the wheels on his car to keep the bearings warm between races.

The racing lanes were outlined with orange cones. The two cars in each race switched lanes after the first heat and ran a second heat in each race. An electronic timing device recorded the margin of victory in each heat. The winner of each race was the driver with the greatest margin of victory.

Rick Hetzel, the chairman of this year's event, said the derby generated more than youthful fun. It also netted the club about $8,000 after expenses. The money, raised from business and individual sponsorships, will be distributed to various community groups that help children, he said.

Lauren Schuette, 11, of Jackson got a hug from her mother after finishing second in the derby. Schuette said the hardest thing about racing is looking straight ahead rather than glancing over at the other driver.

"It helps a lot not to look back," she said.

Lauren's mother, Donna Schuette, said Soap Box Derby racing is in the family -- her father raced in the 1950s.

Kyle Gartland, 12, of Cape Girardeau finished third. Nathan Davis, 12, of Jackson finished fourth. Children ages 8 to 17 can compete in the race.

Each entry in the stock division, car and driver combined, can weigh no more than 200 pounds.

This year for the first time, the Cape Girardeau derby included a super-stock division, which involved a car-and-driver weight limit of 230 pounds and involved sleeker-looking vehicles.

Two cars were entered in that division, compared with 27 in the stock division, said Hetzel. That's not enough entries to go to the nationals. Jacob Conner, 12, of Bloomfield, Mo., won first in the super-stock division while Michelle Kelsay, 13, took home the second-place trophy.

Hetzel said he expects to have more entries in the super-stock division next year.

For fun, this year's derby included races by adults in two specially built derby cars. Like the competition races, these were gravity powered vehicles, but with adults in them they weighed a lot more.

Cape Girardeau businessman David Knight was all smiles after winning his race. "That was pretty much fun," he said after climbing out of the race car in front of the straw bales at the finish line.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123