The judges couldn’t tell that an 11-year old didn’t build a highly engineered, aerodynamic vehicle? My first go cart, that I built at around the same age, was two boards with old tricycle tires nailed to it. The seat was an old kitchen chair.
Speaking for myself and my cousins I can say we did 95% of the actual work ourselves. My uncle, a tool and die maker who should have been an engineer, did most of the designing and oversaw everything we did. Our first year cars sucked but our cars got better every subsequent year as we learned, until we were making cars that looked like the ones in this film. I know I learned a lot of useful stuff about working with fiberglass, wood, metal, paint etc. from my uncle and from various helpful adults in the Derby community and had a great time doing it. Never made it to Akron. My youngest cousin did.
@Erok Magnag good chance it was carbon like what you get out of a pencil. Old trick in the Pinewood world is to "carbon the axels" to make the car go faster.
@Erok Magnag I saw the same where I worked. Hours of Pinewood were charged off to someone else's ticket! "Anything worth winning is worth cheating for." Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(8), pages 985-1016, November.
My father, Robert Cihi, produced, directed, shot and edited this film. I worked camera 3 during the shoot, you can see my name in the credits. The Noyes and Mills families were close and competitive friends of ours. Like Chris Noyes and Diane Mills, I had won my local derby race two years before, in New Rochelle, New York. My family's victory trip to Akron remains a very memorable event in my life. I'm really happy you posted this video. How in the world did you ever find it?
I’m not exactly sure how I got a (vhs) copy of your film, but I’m thrilled that you found this post. The film was really well done. I didn’t see it until the late 80’s and I remember how fascinating it was to see and hear the real story of the legendary magnet car. My family was involved in derby racing from 1979 to the late 90’s. I have such wonderful memories of time spent with my family and derby friends. A few years ago, I visited Akron with my dad. The magnet car is on display at the Hall of Fame. www.flickr.com/photos/davidseitzinger/7640986994/in/album-72157630738004884/
@@davidseitzinger3135 legendary seems a little inappropriate a description for the magnet car, does it not? Seems infamous is a little more fitting! I'd be curious to know how much of an advantage the magnet mechanism actually brought. Maybe make a run using it then immediately another run without energizing it. Just curious.
@@Beezlie727 Good call. Infamous definitely would have been a better choice of words. I can only speculate as to how much of a gain the magnet gave the car at the finish line. The cars start from a dead stop and pick up speed gradually. Many experinced racers will tell you that the race is usually over in about the first 20 feet, so the slightest pull from those heavy ramps would make a big difference at the finish line.
@@noe616 Yes the democrats cheated to give Biden, or should I say Harris, the win. As to NASCAR though, cheating is never the end. You get fined, suspended if it's bad enough, become an instant folk hero to the fans of whichever team it was, and go on about your business.
I built my car at Ramstein AFB in 1971, while my dad was stationed in Turkey, (He had no idea I was even building a car). He read about me winning the championship for American Military kids in Europe in the Stars and Stripes. My mom was awesome just getting me to the wood shop. She could do her teacher stuff while I tried to built my first car all by myself. I made many lasting memories just building that car and taking my mom to Akron. My trip to Akron was incredible and I lost in the first heat by three car lengths. The soap box organization saved my car until 1972 so my dad could see it for the first time when we returned to the States for our next Assignment. I remember seeing my "ugly" car next to the bullet cars and wondered how those kids could have built such a polished missile. My "City Champion" trophy does have John Delorean's signature and the Chevrolet logo. That probably explains my fondness for GM products.
My hat's off to you when I built my derby car I had no help you could tell I've never built anything before. I had a hand saw and a few other hand tools I built it and I was proud of it but it look like a piece of crap. Looking back at these fiberglass cars made me remember the bad taste of Derby left in my mouth. Got to be where the fathers built cars instead of the kids the kids just sat in the cars. Mine was overweight by just a little bit and they told me to lighten it up hell I didn't know how so I didn't get to race after all that work. Looking back I should have got an award for building the damn thing by myself I mean with nobody's help. Screw the derby.
I was there at the Derby that year as a spectator having raced in my home town. My folks took me after having to experience a dose of underhandedness from my locals. I agree, it's hard to believe kids created some of those cars, the paint and body was show car quality.
I had a couple friends back in the early 1960s who built cars. One used chicken wire and fiberglass for the body... his dad did a little help but his dad was not handy either, being a pilot. The other built one of the cold molded ultras that no kid could ever build... built professionally, by hired man and he did very little other than polish it, his dad was a US Senator. I was a year or two younger than my friends because I started public school a year early in England while visiting my grandmother... and I would have been a very nearly a year younger anyway if I started school a year later. However, I though younger and smaller than my classmates, I was very good at making things, and repairing things. And, importantly I was very well read as my aunt purchased me a library of books including an encyclopedia and a bunch of project books along with a complete set of physics, chemistry texts... all of which I had read many times. She did this because I drove her twin sister, my mom, crazy with questions on EVERYTHING as I learned to read well by 3 years old. Best present in the world... must have been 4 when she bought it, but of course I did treasure my stuffed crocodile I got for my 6th birthday and the 30-30 Winchester rifle for my 7th my Grandfather gave me. I did not build a derby car, though I did do some tests, calculations, design down to part drawings. I was building a boat at the time, and my money was tied up in that. The $40 or so for the axle and wheel package was too much to afford too, and in my opinion a bunch of overpriced junk... when I went to the local hardware store that was the official source of the Derby parts in our town. I could make better in my little shop. I thought the mandatory brake design was horrible (as shown here none of them worked well). I decided not to try as the wheels/axle kit on top of the construction costs would take more money than I could earn in a summer of cutting lawns... so I worked on finishing my boat. differentslightlyasymmetricalasymmetricalanticipatebicycle,neither of my friends had any interest in my models and ideas... and I was just a smart ass know it all in both of their parents thinking. I figured it probably would not be allowed to have even 1/16" different wheel sizes so I felt better about not building the car. No matter this little film really brought back my mind to that time, though I suppose it was ten years earlier than shown here. Thinking on it today... I just wonder if any of the winning cars used some of the ideas I discovered in my design process as a kid.... I also think the battery and magnet could have only provided a tiny improvement... I am stunned they tried to put something so easily discovered in the thing.... and I could not imagine such a weak and poor magnet could increase performance much if any. I had made electro magnates and even with a battery size, serval in series, and large number of fine windings I doubt it would have done much anyway... perhaps an ounce of addition pull... nothing. Nothing I would think, in comparison to the increased height of the mass of the car by have extreme rear weight bias, and the decrease in friction drag due to the balance of the car's mass only on two wheels as well as the removal of excess bearing balls from the bearing races.
had the same thing in the boy scouts..... but our cars were tiny (pine wood derby iirc) . i made mine by myself.... dad only lent me tools....made it look like his 1980 chevy long box my dad was a mechanic.... so we had a lot of tools (think i used a bench grinder to shape it lol) . but when i got to the event.... here are PERFECT cars..... mine had cheap model car paint with no clear coat theirs were perfectly sanded, with gloss paint, with 2 clears . like.... no way a ~13 year old kid could do that..... even if they had pro-wood-worker tools.... and even knew how to use them! . and sure enough..... the "fancy" car won the event..... and their kid got to do to state VS all other parent built cars then nationals ETC
@@kainhall So true... the reality! Now I suppose in the Soapbox derby the winning level cars cost more than the scholarship... and those that buy them can easily afford the college expense without scholarship! It is too bad the thing didn't stay with the use of the old wooden packing crate origin... like rules that said, you can make what you want but you have to use a soap box and it has to look like one when you are done! The idea that kids could build these professional level racers... or afford even the materials is not sane on the face of it. The whole thing was a fraud... and even as a kid it was obvious to me... and really driven home with comparison of my friend's experience. You know I just lost interest for that reason and never even went to see the race. Why do parents and adults think it is OK to do these things to kids... just reinforces to the regular kids... their betters are better because their parents are rich and stupid cheats!
I had a shirttail relative, a second cousin, who won his city championship one year. He didn't have many other things to be proud of, with a dysfunctional family and a terrible home life, but that year everyone in the family was envious of him. I'm glad he won and got a trip to Akron.
@@filthylucreonyoutube I agree about the history. The audio definitely started with an (for the time) industry standard television audio eq curve, in mono, and is very compressed for broadcast. The dub, most likely, scrubbed even more low frequencies as the audio volume was boosted creating quite noticeable distortion and, likely, peaking in certain upper mid and high frequencies as it recorded to the second source. Depending on the levels as it crashed into the RUclips system, it was most likely squashed even more so now it's brittle as all hell. I need to download it and look at the wav file in a DAW. I bet it looks like music from the early 2000s all brick-walled and in a spectrum analyzer, nothing below 500hz and a huge spike at 6000 and up.
So basically they put an electromagnet in the nose, that rested against the metal starting bar. When the bar was dropped, to start the race, the magnet would stick to the pole as it dropped, and pull the car forward, giving it a slight advantage.
My brother raced in this race. My dad played a part in exposing the cheating. It was our 2nd trip to Akron. We were friends with Diane from Putnam county, NY. Here nickname was "Pinky." Both my brothers are in this video at 8:05 and 9:54. I didn't make the cut! LOL I was able to win and take my family back to Akron in 1974. Because that was the last year for the derby in my town, I am still the reigning champion! LMAOOOO
Congrats Champ!!I would have loved to have been involved in the Soap Box Derby. I did participate one year in the Pinewood Derby, lol. I spent weeks carving and getting my little car ready. My car immediately jumped out in front at the start of my race, but about halfway down it flew completely off the track and that was it, no do-overs or anything like that.It sure was a lot of fun though.
The reasons people thought there was cheating was due to his race times. He was winnings by a margin that was much more than other races. Also, his times got slower with each subsequent race, not faster. This was due to the battery getting weaker with each race.
@@alwaysopen7970 Neodymium wouldn’t be any good coz it had to be an electro magnet or the stewards setting the car up on the start line would have noticed it “clamp” onto the start gate.
I participated in the Derby in "69--72. My older brother won in Eugene, Oregon in 1970 and raced at Akron. There were two extremes in the Soap Box Derby in those days: organizers who didn't take it seriously enough, and adults who too it too seriously and cheated. A perfect storm. The Soap Box Derby still goes on, but now everyone uses kit cars. Most kids aren't learning the engineering and fabrication skills like we were in those days.
I raced in 1960 61 and 62. I really followed the rules, and even kept receipts because the rules even specified how much you had to spend. I wouldn't let my dad help. I wish i was still that kid, before the world corrupted me. I won a few heats over the three years. I have so many happy memories building and racing. Todays derby is nothing like the one i participated in.
Wow, Ronald we raced the same years, I was in Seattle. My last year in Seattle I lost (18") to the eventual winner. He placed third at Akron in 72. His Dad was a big participant but I was proud to have built my own car and learned a ton in the process, a priceless life lesson. Totally concur with your words. Take care!
So true and don't forget about the lack of spectator protection where earlier a car veered off into the crowd, breaking someone's ankle. Reminiscent of group B days.......
I remember as a child I participated in the soap box derby I work hard on my derby car supposed to be built by Us kids. I remember kid showed up with his fiberglass cocoon derby car. This kid was younger and smaller than me . Hit me that's when I found out people cheat all the time. My father did not help me with mine . I got Materials wherever I could. I tried hard build this car the way they told us to. I took my car to the derby mr.fix it said my car way too much with me in it. So I could not race. They told me I would have to lighten it up and I'm looking at the car just being a kid going how the hell do I do that. My father worked at a textile mill and he worked all the time I don't blame him I was one of six kids. He spent his time trying to feed us. Derby left a bad taste in my mouth the rest of my life.
Did you not get a copy of the rule book to find out the maximum allowable weight? Seems pretty elementary. You can't just show up on race day with whatever you brung.
I'm sorry your experience was not good. The derby is meant to be a father-son effort. The dad teaches the son on how to do wood working and other skills. We scrounged for materials too. The fiberglass cloth we used was from old curtains. I had to sand off the pattern in some of the cloth!! LMAO
@@s.sestric9929 yeah I got a copy of the rule book I was 6 pounds overweight with me in it . Keep in mind my age and trying to build it by myself. I can tell by your question you are nothing more than a mama's boy. That's the only dick head that would ask a question like that. Growing up on Mill Hill we didn't have a lot of scales to weigh our cars. Pretty little momma's boy like you probably wouldn't have lasted too long in my neighborhood. It was a very good lesson teaching me to be independent. Yeah the Derby taught me a lot.
@@dmonat there was a lot of kids there that built their own cars with their dads. You could tell the dad helped and just didn't build it. Certainly nothing wrong with that if your father has the time and the resources. I'll remember guy named Randy him and his dad was pretty cool his dad somewhat trying to help me once I was out there. To lighten it up would just destroy my car. I'm sure the Derby was a lot of fun for them. As it should be. Be honest I don't remember that much about it I just remembered mr. Fix it he was a ass-hole. Me and the boys back in the neighborhood we had a lot of fun with that car you could put three of us on there and haul ass.
@@nautiquecowboynautiquecowb5317 Half a century later you're still an embittered and angry person. I urge you to just let go and quit fighting lost battles in your head over and over again. Life's too short.
My grandpa got me into this in the mid nineties up through the 2000's. Great memories from back then. he's been in it since 1970 my mom is 1976 world champ and my uncle is 1977 world champ. My gramps is 85 now and still involved in the derby.
I built a fiberglass car very similar to those in the film when I was 13, did 95% of the hands-on work myself, but had an uncle who had lots of experience directing my every move. There was a fair amount of tear-up do-over involved and endless Bondo/sanding/grinding because I wasn't skillful enough to lay up glass with a perfect finish first try. Fiberglassing is just one of many skills I was "forced" to learn when racing Derby.
It wasn't easy. The first thing we learned was to not put resing in a Dairy Queen banana split dish. The resin melted the plastic and we had a puddle on the floor! LMAO One other memory was actually putting the car in the living room so that the fiberglass would cure because the garage wasn't heated. My mom was not happy!! LOL
We built our cars with the same technique as making a canoe. Wooden slats are tacked to temporary wooden bulkheads and the ends were rabbited into a wooden nose and tail piece. This technique was stronger than laying fiberglass over a Styrofoam mold.
People have been cheating at racing as long as there has been racing. They still do it today. " It's not cheating if you don't get caught "......Smokey Yunick
Or as D.W. put it "We weren't rule breakers so much as rule makers." For instance it wasn't illegal to run extra fuel line so your car would hold more fuel until someone got caught with a bunch of extra fuel line looped around. No telling how many times that trick had been used.
lol, need to be pinned. Magnet pulls the car toward the release barrier, giving in an infintesimal amount of extra speed.. Would be interesting to get a physicist to calculate how much of a bonus this might have given. Probably more impressed they actually x-rayed the car.
This cheating had been going on years before this. I was in the Detroit soap box derby and I always had a fast car but when I was 14 around 1962 I went to the race and had a fast car but there was one car that when the car took off it shot out of the gate and was a length ahead of everybody. In fact as we watched from the starting line the car would put there brake on but still shot out ahead by a car length. I lost but this car went on to win and went to Ohio for the race. We could not figure out how this car did it but after 1973 we knew. The magnet was used back then.
thats very true my father knew of a family here in akron whos boy was in the derby for many years - his father (even though you were not supposed to tamper w/ the wheels and axles) machined the wheels and axles to a precision running clearance and another family member had access to a wind tunnel where his car body was sent for the aerodynamics these kids had not built those cars for many years
I was in the Detroit Soap Box Derby around 1962 also. My uncle was an engineer at the GM Tech Center in Warren Michigan. He said that other fathers were having their derby cars tested in GM’s wind tunnel. My steering cable was broken after the trial runs - when the race officials lined the cars up for their official races. A race official had to repair the broken 500 pound aircraft cable. It would have taken a lot of jostling of the car to have broken that cable. I won the first heat but lost in the second heat to the car that would end up winning that year’s race. Coincidence? Also, all of the winning cars had exquisite fiberglass bodies with multiple coats of lacquer. Obviously nothing an 11 year old kid could do. Bitter? Not really because it taught me a lot about the ethics and morality of this country.
In my town nothing like this existed, but I used old hand push lawn mower wheels and scrape twice reclaimed lumber and pipe to build a coaster with roap and foot steering drag up and ride down the cow trails and roads around the area. It is a miracle that I survived. Some of those hills were extreamly steep and crooked with no shoulder and barbed wire fences.
I didn't find out about soapbox derby until I was far too old to ride one. However, I did have a Radio Flyer and Calvin and Hobbes opened my eyes to its possibilities. With no brakes it's a wonder I didn't ever break anything. Learning to lay it on its side in the grass at the bottom of the hill instead of flying into the gorge like Calvin was an acquired skill.
Tom that's hilarious, this is my first time even hearing about these things. I've only ridden and raced dirtbikes all my life and your creations sound like a blast to ride down those cow trails lol. Rope & foot steering kinda like a rudder in an airplane?
Thomas LeMay you were lucky to have barbed wire to stop you. We had to race on a road riddled with land mines and next to alligator infested waters. Did I mention the alligators had ak47 guns,
I remember those, a good set of wheels was for the rich kids, one time a neighbors kid built one with a steering wheel mounted on a broom stick with a front and back support, problem was it steer right when he turned left, he had the rope wrapped around the broom stick the wrong way, I figured it out and fixed it for him. my first auto repair at age around 8, lots of fun,
I miss Derby Downs being packed like that and absolutely electric with excitement. I raced from 1992-2001 -- Stock champ in 1995 and Superstock champ in 1997 from Spokane, WA, and Master's champ in 1999 from Salem, OR. I'm glad I got to experience Akron mostly like this. Also, the mention of Spokane, Washington in this video is AWESOME!
@J M I always think of him as the NOVA voice. His voice was used in one of the first sampled hit songs, Paul Hardcastle’s “19”. He fought for and got royalties.
I was told this story by Jimmy, now Jim, himself. I had the good fortune to spend a bit of time with him about a decade back. He didn't share this lightly, not like a casual story of "the time I...". We were having a serious discussion about some of our old "stuff", and he shared the story as something that impacted his life very intensely. He said he rarely told the story, and it was a very traumatic experience for him. He explained that he had no idea that he was cheating, and was running the car as his uncle had taught him. Many of the cars were engineered by parents, and he thought his was no different. Just doing everything needed to win, including the button. He knew he was doing some stuff. He thought everyone was doing the same. He was genuinely elated to win. He didn't find out about being caught until he heard it on the evening news. He was shocked to hear his name, and the label of cheater, and the comparison to Nixon and Watergate. His life was overturned. It was very depressing. It's never easy being the bad guy. As an adult he is a good man. He is modest, highly conscious, spiritual, and kind. I still think about the day we went kayaking on a beautiful like, at his invitation, and in his boats. I found a single large deer antler that day, but we couldn't find the other side. I found out later that he went back several time to look for it, hoping to surprise me. His story also reminded me of my Pinewood derby experience. I built my car myself, although everyone thought my dad had built it. I was already a good craftsman, having spent several years building model rockets and airplanes, learning about building and finishing techniques, and taking it a little too seriously as a young perfectionist. I still excell at these skills, and I know many men and women who do too. Back then, though, not many kids cars looked as good as mine! I remember feeling mad that people thought I hadn't built my car. I'm pretty sure they didn't give me 1st place in design because of it. On the other hand, the car was built to max weight, the nail axles were polished and "lubed" with graphite. All the current strategies needed to win, that were available to anyone, were used. I won 1st place in speed. I still have the car, and the trophy! Jim, if you are reading this, I hope it's OK that I shared what I did, and I hope you are well.
Interesting contrast of stories. This is how we all learn (as children) about the corruption in this world. Most of us don't have to do it before a national audience.
I was also told this story by Jim himself, probably around the year 2000 or just a few years earlier. You are correct his life was really messed up after this. Had to change his last name etc. etc.. I will not reveal what it is. It's now 2023. You are correct, he is a very nice man and very spiritually oriented. Haven't seen nor heard of him in about 14 years. Hope he is doing well. I kinda miss him.
When I was a boy in the mid 60's, the race was held in Ravenna, Oh. It was called the Portage County Soap Box Derby. The race started at the original Midway Lanes. It ran down the hill toward Kent on Route 5. The finish line was just past an overhead steel railroad trestle that is still used today.
Thx for sharing! I happen to be gal Columbia,sc who ran heat with Cronin kid. It was photo finish. Dad asked do you want me to debate this cause it’s not right. To keep drama down I said no. Although first girl to have won best upholstery. Lol
My childhood friend raced about this time, he designed and built his car ENTIRELY by himself, his father didn't live with him ... his car looked REALLY bad, and ran out of control and crashed in the first heat ... we all laughed. Years later, I'm really proud of that kid he was .. among all those other kids driving cars their father built and spent big bucks on.
classic cheating story: not soap box but....at one of the first few nascar races at daytona track the winner was followed into victory lane by the second place finisher who was yelling "he's cheating ...i know he's cheating" when asked how he knew that he said "because i'm cheating every way i can think of...and i had nothing for him out there"
Its not technically cheating unless its in the rule book, I can bet the rule book didn't say anything about magnets lol. Look up the Dodge Boys (Alderman and Geoffrion) from NHRA pro stock back in the 90's if you want a good cheating story (although they were never caught) but NHRA had to add "no nitrous" to the rule book after that.
@@Cutlass_Rudd others read the rule book and say to themselves it says we can do this...when i raced my view was ...it doesn't say we cant do this. always considered myself a failure if the tech inspectors didn't have a conversation with the rule book in hand.
I built my Soap Box Derby car in 1959 and was ready to race in the Derby on the Air Force Base (Ramey AFB) in Puerto Rico. And just before the race my Dad got orders to ship out immediatly, with Family, back to the US. I never got to race my car. Had to leave it behind in the Dumpster behind our house. Never built another one for the Derby, but my wife and i enjoy going to Marble Falls TX for the Gravity Races. Homemade Derby cars for Adults.
The derby still goes on but it's not anything like it was in the 60s and 70s. Chevrolet used to be a sponser for years until they forgot how to build a good car.
From a standstill, an advantage of.2 seconds gives a slight lead in the first 3-4 seconds of perhaps a foot. With identical cars, that advantage can't be overcome and translates to almost 10 ft at the end. It's like a hole shot in drag racing....every race!
My name is Cody Butler. I won Akron in 2000 Masters division. Im from Anderson Indiana. I started derby in 1996 with my father. He built cars in the 70s and 80s and told me about this story. My dad had hundreds of old derby pics and negatives... including cars from this video. Pretty neat. The derby is some of my best memories with my dad and our 2000 masters world championship is my greatest day.
I was an adult when this happened and in my circle we thought this was the funniest thing ever. There was something about an institution going SPLAT that was, and remains, absolutely hilarious. After all, no one was damned fool stupid enough to think those kids built those cars on their own.
@Pretty good Guy Yunick cheated the rules in NASCAR, but he claimed it was only because everybody else did too. He did stuff that nobody else thought of or would do, like snaking a 1" fuel line all though the car to hold an extra 10 gallons of gas, or smoothing the underside of a race car with body filler to gain an aerodynamic advantage. The Chevelle was really the last straw for both sides. NASCAR had just started using body templates to stop all the body modifications. The templates didn't fit Smokey's Chevelle (he claimed it was built from a roll over wreck, NASCAR claimed he chopped the top) but they didn't fit a rental Chevelle Smokey brought in either. In the end, NASCAR gave him a "fix-it" list that was reported to be two pages long, including a request that he "change the frame".
My dad and my uncle built us a soap box derby car that looked like a 1970s supermodified. They figured since we lived at the top of a steep hill what could go wrong? My brother drove while i held on to the back for dear life and we put that sucker half way through the farmers shed door at the bottom after first taking out his kids hockey net. A good laugh was had by all and we spent the next day learning how to build and hang a new door. Not a helmet in sight, good times.
Jarts and BB guns together. Banana seat bikes, commercial skateboards just came out. Kids couldn't deal with the trucks screwed to a plank of wood these days.
Every type of racing has been affected by cheating and high cost technology, even human running events. Sad that what starts out as a grassroot competition ends up like this.
I had my two boys in Cub Scouts and every year they would have the Pinewood Derby race. It was sad the the scout leaders did nothing to stop the fathers from influencing the way the cars were built. The winning cars were nothing more then a slab of flat wood with lead weight added to reach the maximum weight. Nothing was ever said or done to allow boys with little guidance to be able to compete. The competition was so corrupted with fathers creating things that could not be considered a car, just to win. As a father, I also did help my boys. Actually, that was the idea. For fathers to spend time with their sons and build something together. I would help them create their own vision of a car. None of these cars every won a race. My boys quit the scouts after a couple years. Even at their young age. They could see that the playing field was not always level. This story reminds me of our days around the Boy Scouts. Fairness and fair play was always at question.
Great memories the soup box was so much fun I came close but the cars at the finals were so darn fast. I had a great time racing. My pine woods won every year 76, 77. 78 was the year I got 2nd in speed.
I know exactly what you mean. When I was growing up, I participated in Cub Scouts and the Pinewood Derby. My dad's only input was to ask me what shape to cut it, cut the pine block with a saw, and hand it back to me. I was completely in charge of everything else. There were other kids in our group who's parents did everything and their cars were highly engineered to win with all sorts of little tricks. Consequently, my car always lost. When my two boys got into Scouts, I promised myself that I was not going to let the same thing happen to them. So I helped them shape, sand, and paint the car. Then we took it to my brother, who was an engineer. He spent a long time sanding and polishing the nails and making sure that the weights were distributed perfectly on the cars. He also did a lot of other little pinewood derby tricks to make the cars go faster. And, as a result, my boys' cars did well. But I couldn't help notice some of the cars of boys who either didn't have a father or who's fathers were like mine. Those cars were built by little kids and did not do well against cars built by adults. I could see the same disappointment on their faces that I had. Likewise, my kids were happy that they won but at the same time they weren't as happy as they would have been if they had built it completely on their own. So far as I know, there was no cheating involved, but it was more of a competition between fathers than kids. I wish that I had a solution to make it more like what it was intended to be, but I don't.
We didn't do it when I was in Cub scouts. Had some sort of rocket derby...my dad didn't help. When my son was i cub scouts I helped a bit, but his pack also had a parent's class. Can't say other dads didn't build their kids but I thought it was a good way to let the kids build their cars and let the parents go crazy at the same time.
@Alastair Dow He used to be a hero of mine. But the more you learn about the guy, the more you find out he was a total sociopath. Perhaps his most despicable cheat was selling a ranch property to a salt-of-the-earth elderly farm couple for them only to find out he didn’t own it in the first place and they wound up losing the land and their money. Sooper Dooshy in my book. Yes, they should have done a deeds check but they were old-school “handshake” folks and they trusted him - he was the great and famous John DeLorean after all! There are a few exposes on him you can find on YT.
@Alastair Dow Here ya go. I'm a pontiac fan and thought JD was an unsung hero, ruined by DMC's collapse and tabloid lies. Then I saw this; holy crap if even 20% of this is true, he should've been hung, Hero my ass ruclips.net/video/CnjUfw5Ixxc/видео.html _Scandal: The Fast Lane (John DeLorean / Roy Nesseth documentary)_
Considering the massive tooling costs for the top builds it stands to reason. Wind tunnel testing is not cheap. (I mean my parents just bought balsa wood & provided emotional support - i did all the work i promise!)
The battery represents an additional (motive) power source in what was obstinately supposed to be a (self-contained) gravity powered vehicle. The argument that the falling starting gates are themselves gravity powered does not hold true because the carts do not carry them across the finish line; else the competition would always come down to whomever had the most responsive and powerful trebuchet launcher. [thought tangent, posted per self-imposed rule] And I doubt even the era that still looked at historical infantry weapons (plumbata, caltrops, bola, etc) and thought "these will make fantastic children's toys" (Jarts/lawn-darts, jacks, Clackers, etc) - would have the stomach for that. Then again, miniature full-power ovens,irons, etc were popular; And firearms and other ballistic weaponry were commonly advertised for children. --Yet-- I --still can't-- imagine society trying to flatten the population curve of the baby-boom so overtly. Oh right, "Action Park". Disregard the above, I have convinced myself that they would have reached that point *if* the prize-sponsor didn't pull out.
@@LynxSnowCat That was quite a rant. I have no idea what you have against boomers: we had the best childhoods. No helicopter parents, we could play all day and be home when the street lights come home. No one bothered you and there were plenty of kids outside doing the same thing as you. Video games didn't arrive to ruin life until a few years after this video.
What is even more discerning, is the lessons that their mentors are teaching them for life.... In retrospect, in 1973 this was a national outrage, today, I doubt if anyone would consider this more than a minor offense. Just look at last years baseball league champs (pro), they cheated, were caught and nothing happen with the title (IIRR), and the players involved (with their multi-million dollar salaries), with the exception of 1 (IIRR), got more than a "hand-slap". A sad day for humanity and the reputation the USA once had...... imho of course
Outstanding video. I have some memories of this when it occurred but we were more of a football, baseball neighborhood so this didn't get much attention in Brooklyn. It was considered a rich kid thing. Leave it to adults to spoil a childs fun..... and innocence.
when I was a kid I heard about this story, but that story I was told was different. I was told, because the magnet was so strong the cheater ran into the other kid and killed him. good video. I am glad to see it
Naw, I heard the other boy had iron tooth fillings and he died when the magnet tore them out of his head. That's what my older brother said who knew a kid whose cousin was there.
I grew up in a salvage yard...I remember this because they put a diagram in the Sunday paper... My old man cut out the picture stapled it to the wall of the office and printed our company name on the car as the sponsor!
and the children did all the work! The parents only bought balsa wood, sticky tape and a few nails. Little timmy purchased the vacu-form and cnc workshop with his paper-run pocket money and was able to access NASA's wind tunnel by volunteering.
There used to be the Sand Hill Challenge soap box derby, brainchild of Buck's of Woodside restaurant owner Jamis MacNiven in Menlo Park California. This was a fun event full of young children from Silicon Valley engineers..!!
At the time this film was made, I was 11 or 12 and somehow got a set of Soap Box Derby wheels/axles identical to the red ones seen here. Never built a car, but did figure out that you could hang the front wheels of a skateboard over the axle, sit on the board with your feet up, and hang on to the axle to steer it. It would flat out fly down the hill our street was on. And if you tried to brake using your feet, Flintstone style, it'd easily burn the sole/heels off your gym shoes in a day. Got chewed out for doing that to a new pair of Converse. What was funny is that shortly after getting a new pair, we were playing football with our friends Boxer dog. You ran around the yard carrying a football and the dog would go nuts trying to "tackle" you if you had the ball. While running from him, he nailed me from behind by chompin' down on the back of my shoe, which ripped the entire rubber sole off in one piece. The rest of it was still laced to my foot looking normal. I got another ass chewin', and the dog had lived up to his name. It was Butkus.
The flatbed truck was owned by TOP HAT TOWING , Buddy Pugliese from New Rochelle.. it had air bags, you can see it's unusual single rear wheel design and the flaps in the bed that allow the wheel to go through when lowered .. I worked for Buddy for years, he taught me A Lot ! I went on to own Eagle Towing in NR and made a great living ... awesome video ! RIP Buddy.. you are very missed..
Now i realize why GM pulled out, i read that Chevrolet operated the derby through 1971, pouring about $1 million a year into the race. When the automaker withdrew its sponsorship and clout in 1972, the race dwindled from 252 participating cities to 138 in a single year.
I miss Derby Downs being packed like that and absolutely electric with excitement. I raced from 1992-2001. I'm glad I got to experience Akron mostly like this. Also, the mention of Spokane, Washington is AWESOME!
Thank you for uploading this film. I'm quite surprised, that a simple electromagnet can help you to win a race because I think this magnet at the start point made max. 1 or 1.5 seconds not more. Or do you know, how exactly it was worked out? It's just for interesting and information for me. Here in Austria and Germany, for some races it's equal what you use, the only forbidden thing is any sort of motor, the rest is up to you. cheerio Toni
It seems pretty ludicrous for anyone to truly believe that those sleek beautifully finished cars were built by 11 year old kids without adult help. Most of them seem so tight, that I guess they had to take into consideration how much the kid might grow before the championships.
I was 12 when this happened and and even with all the crap and bad press I still wanted to race in the derby. I had a small problem it's the same year I had a growth spurt and went from 5 foot 2 to 6 foot tall that killed me ever getting in to a derby car that and I tipped the scales at 159 pounds.
I remembered I had to take 6 pounds out of my car was the cut off 150 lb? because I believe mine weight 156 with me in it. I'm 65 years old now I just remember mr.fix it told me I was too heavy to race and they just push me over to the side and said next. I remember being by myself as my father worked all the time and the neighbor had actually taken me out to the Coliseum were had to weigh in before the race. So standing there by myself mr.fix it tells me I need to lighten the car up 6 lb which I worked on so hard I didn't know what to do . Seems like one of the volunteers maybe it was the Jaycees he took one look at my car just kind of shook his head .So I didn't race. Somewhat made me a big boy at a very early age especially when I seen all these fiberglass cocoon cars. My car was made out of wood and masonite siding . I also was a rather tall kid However me and my friends had a ball with my car in the neighborhood it would hold two or three kids going downhill my braking system was the best. Of course I sook the wood out from underneath my sister's beds good thing I had 3 sisters to make my axles and my braking system and that's all the wood I could find. My car was literally built out of scrap material. I guess it would have been great to have a father who could help me out but one of six kids just didn't work out with him working at a textile mill. I guess he was just too tired to care but I still had a great father. I guess the only ones that won't like my post are the ones with the fiberglass cocoon cars but to the boys like me built their own my hat's off to you.
I was raised In Akron. In 57 or 58 I drove my neighbors car in a practice session. At that time they used 3 lanes. The middle lane had a distinct advantage. Somehow, the crown in the track made the middle faster. At that time the middle lane won about 70% of the time. I was in the right lane. The middle lane beat me by about a length. The left lane and I tied. I remember feeling cheated. But, it wasn't my car and it wasn't an official race. Then and there, I decided I wasn't going to build a car for the next year.
interesting story. not sure why the punchline was revealed in the beginning and similarly the ending was interspersed with comments about the cheating and the aftermath while events were shown to still be unfolding. still very interesting.
There was cheating in my Cub Scout Pinewood Derbies when I was a kid. My hometown is the world headquarters of a MAJOR engine manufacturer, attracting world class engineering talent. Each year, my cars were legit - I designed and built them myself. Sure, Dad taught me how to use tools and sand them, but I built them and painted them, as it SHOULD be. But somehow, gee I don’t know how, the kids with Engineer dads- SOMEHOW their cars looked like they were built by NASA! Even the paint jobs looked like they had been done at a body shop. And gosh, somehow those cars always won, go figure. One year I actually had a contender- once I figured out my car actually ran better backwards! I made it to the final heat with 3 ringers as competition. I was so excited I forgot to put it on the track backwards and it came in dead last. As you can tell, I’m TOTALLY over it now. Lol
My Pinewood derby car won its first few heats and in the final, the guy putting the cars on the track, dropped mine, breaking it, without even looking at me or commenting, he picked it up, handed it to me and took another car and put it up on the track. I was 9 or so, and was trashed for months, but I’m over it now...kinda...
@@stevestikihutable and this was an “adult”? It would have been a shame if his car was accidentally keyed down both sides without comment. I’m sorry that happened to you. First world problems I know... but they still hurt.
I’m all for rule bending and innovation in racing but... teaching your kids to cheat to win has life long effects.. not cool. That being said, electro magnet was very clever!
I think of the orange crate ,two by four ,mix matched wheel jobs my friends and I hobbled together with bent ,rusted nails ,then look at the cars these kids were racing and thought that this just the FIRST time someone was caught cheating. I'm sure it had been going on for some time.
You rack disciprine. If you havent built your own wind tunnel & CNC workshop, and can design an ultimate car with your programmed CAD machine by the time youre 8 - Youre hopeless! thats what i did. My dad just bought the stickytape and balsa wood. I promise
@@fredfinks I recall watching these races on wide world of sports and even then found it impossible to believe those cars were not either built by parents or engineers . The only participation by children was the actual driving(if a midget could have been found ,even kids would have been left out all together)
We used to build go karts and fly down the hill where we lived. I bet we had a lot more fun than this silly event. No parents were involved either! Just kids building go karts and having fun.
I grew up in Akron and the derby was always a big part of our lives. I remember Lorne Greene and the rest of the Bonanza gang would be marshals. It was a huge event right next to the Rubber Bowl overlooking the Akron Municipal Airport. MEMORIES!
@@Sedona-cl6eg I grew up in Goodyear Heights. When I graduated from West Point., I headed overseas never to return. Everyone has either passed away or moved away. Great childhood memories. The Derby was just part of that. Akron is a great place to be from.
Great film!! My son just won the World Championship Local Stock last Saturday. He is the youngest racer in 83 years to win..he’s 8. People still take about this race. Definitely different racing nowadays…wish there was still this much interest. Guess it’s just to slow for some kids lol.
"Jimmy's father is dead and his mother is hospitalized"
honestly that seems like a pretty harsh punishment for cheating
🤣😂
Hey man, the 70's were a rough decade...
Wild West cheating rules
I think that is bad they won’t tell you what they do to the winners
We use to be tough on crime. Where have we gone wrong that we're so soft now??? ;)
The judges couldn’t tell that an 11-year old didn’t build a highly engineered, aerodynamic vehicle? My first go cart, that I built at around the same age, was two boards with old tricycle tires nailed to it. The seat was an old kitchen chair.
Speaking for myself and my cousins I can say we did 95% of the actual work ourselves. My uncle, a tool and die maker who should have been an engineer, did most of the designing and oversaw everything we did. Our first year cars sucked but our cars got better every subsequent year as we learned, until we were making cars that looked like the ones in this film.
I know I learned a lot of useful stuff about working with fiberglass, wood, metal, paint etc. from my uncle and from various helpful adults in the Derby community and had a great time doing it. Never made it to Akron. My youngest cousin did.
It sounds like a Hyundai.
@Erok Magnag good chance it was carbon like what you get out of a pencil. Old trick in the Pinewood world is to "carbon the axels" to make the car go faster.
@Erok Magnag I saw the same where I worked. Hours of Pinewood were charged off to someone else's ticket!
"Anything worth winning is worth cheating for."
Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 87(8), pages 985-1016, November.
@@90FF1 Or ....2nd is just the the first looser....Ricky Bobby
My father, Robert Cihi, produced, directed, shot and edited this film. I worked camera 3 during the shoot, you can see my name in the credits. The Noyes and Mills families were close and competitive friends of ours. Like Chris Noyes and Diane Mills, I had won my local derby race two years before, in New Rochelle, New York. My family's victory trip to Akron remains a very memorable event in my life. I'm really happy you posted this video. How in the world did you ever find it?
I’m not exactly sure how I got a (vhs) copy of your film, but I’m thrilled that you found this post. The film was really well done. I didn’t see it until the late 80’s and I remember how fascinating it was to see and hear the real story of the legendary magnet car. My family was involved in derby racing from 1979 to the late 90’s. I have such wonderful memories of time spent with my family and derby friends. A few years ago, I visited Akron with my dad. The magnet car is on display at the Hall of Fame.
www.flickr.com/photos/davidseitzinger/7640986994/in/album-72157630738004884/
@@davidseitzinger3135 legendary seems a little inappropriate a description for the magnet car, does it not? Seems infamous is a little more fitting! I'd be curious to know how much of an advantage the magnet mechanism actually brought. Maybe make a run using it then immediately another run without energizing it. Just curious.
@@Beezlie727 Good call. Infamous definitely would have been a better choice of words. I can only speculate as to how much of a gain the magnet gave the car at the finish line. The cars start from a dead stop and pick up speed gradually. Many experinced racers will tell you that the race is usually over in about the first 20 feet, so the slightest pull from those heavy ramps would make a big difference at the finish line.
Freestyle Media I have an original. My father owns it.
I don't believe you
“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin'” ... NASCAR'S Junior Johnson...and every other NASCAR crewchief in history..
But if you get caught "cheatin", you're done. So u-namerican if I say so. American is never done.
Joe Biden cheated.
@@noe616 Yes the democrats cheated to give Biden, or should I say Harris, the win. As to NASCAR though, cheating is never the end. You get fined, suspended if it's bad enough, become an instant folk hero to the fans of whichever team it was, and go on about your business.
Its only cheating when you get caught. Cutting corners is the American way
I'll check with Smoky...
@@noe616 no, your trailer trash messiah lost.
I built my car at Ramstein AFB in 1971, while my dad was stationed in Turkey, (He had no idea I was even building a car). He read about me winning the championship for American Military kids in Europe in the Stars and Stripes. My mom was awesome just getting me to the wood shop. She could do her teacher stuff while I tried to built my first car all by myself. I made many lasting memories just building that car and taking my mom to Akron.
My trip to Akron was incredible and I lost in the first heat by three car lengths. The soap box organization saved my car until 1972 so my dad could see it for the first time when we returned to the States for our next Assignment.
I remember seeing my "ugly" car next to the bullet cars and wondered how those kids could have built such a polished missile.
My "City Champion" trophy does have John Delorean's signature and the Chevrolet logo. That probably explains my fondness for GM products.
My hat's off to you when I built my derby car I had no help you could tell I've never built anything before. I had a hand saw and a few other hand tools I built it and I was proud of it but it look like a piece of crap. Looking back at these fiberglass cars made me remember the bad taste of Derby left in my mouth. Got to be where the fathers built cars instead of the kids the kids just sat in the cars. Mine was overweight by just a little bit and they told me to lighten it up hell I didn't know how so I didn't get to race after all that work. Looking back I should have got an award for building the damn thing by myself I mean with nobody's help. Screw the derby.
I was there at the Derby that year as a spectator having raced in my home town. My folks took me after having to experience a dose of underhandedness from my locals. I agree, it's hard to believe kids created some of those cars, the paint and body was show car quality.
I had a couple friends back in the early 1960s who built cars. One used chicken wire and fiberglass for the body... his dad did a little help but his dad was not handy either, being a pilot.
The other built one of the cold molded ultras that no kid could ever build... built professionally, by hired man and he did very little other than polish it, his dad was a US Senator.
I was a year or two younger than my friends because I started public school a year early in England while visiting my grandmother... and I would have been a very nearly a year younger anyway if I started school a year later. However, I though younger and smaller than my classmates, I was very good at making things, and repairing things. And, importantly I was very well read as my aunt purchased me a library of books including an encyclopedia and a bunch of project books along with a complete set of physics, chemistry texts... all of which I had read many times. She did this because I drove her twin sister, my mom, crazy with questions on EVERYTHING as I learned to read well by 3 years old. Best present in the world... must have been 4 when she bought it, but of course I did treasure my stuffed crocodile I got for my 6th birthday and the 30-30 Winchester rifle for my 7th my Grandfather gave me.
I did not build a derby car, though I did do some tests, calculations, design down to part drawings. I was building a boat at the time, and my money was tied up in that. The $40 or so for the axle and wheel package was too much to afford too, and in my opinion a bunch of overpriced junk... when I went to the local hardware store that was the official source of the Derby parts in our town. I could make better in my little shop. I thought the mandatory brake design was horrible (as shown here none of them worked well). I decided not to try as the wheels/axle kit on top of the construction costs would take more money than I could earn in a summer of cutting lawns... so I worked on finishing my boat.
differentslightlyasymmetricalasymmetricalanticipatebicycle,neither of my friends had any interest in my models and ideas... and I was just a smart ass know it all in both of their parents thinking. I figured it probably would not be allowed to have even 1/16" different wheel sizes so I felt better about not building the car.
No matter this little film really brought back my mind to that time, though I suppose it was ten years earlier than shown here.
Thinking on it today... I just wonder if any of the winning cars used some of the ideas I discovered in my design process as a kid.... I also think the battery and magnet could have only provided a tiny improvement... I am stunned they tried to put something so easily discovered in the thing.... and I could not imagine such a weak and poor magnet could increase performance much if any. I had made electro magnates and even with a battery size, serval in series, and large number of fine windings I doubt it would have done much anyway... perhaps an ounce of addition pull... nothing. Nothing I would think, in comparison to the increased height of the mass of the car by have extreme rear weight bias, and the decrease in friction drag due to the balance of the car's mass only on two wheels as well as the removal of excess bearing balls from the bearing races.
had the same thing in the boy scouts..... but our cars were tiny (pine wood derby iirc)
.
i made mine by myself.... dad only lent me tools....made it look like his 1980 chevy long box
my dad was a mechanic.... so we had a lot of tools (think i used a bench grinder to shape it lol)
.
but when i got to the event.... here are PERFECT cars.....
mine had cheap model car paint with no clear coat
theirs were perfectly sanded, with gloss paint, with 2 clears
.
like.... no way a ~13 year old kid could do that..... even if they had pro-wood-worker tools....
and even knew how to use them!
.
and sure enough..... the "fancy" car won the event.....
and their kid got to do to state VS all other parent built cars
then nationals ETC
@@kainhall So true... the reality! Now I suppose in the Soapbox derby the winning level cars cost more than the scholarship... and those that buy them can easily afford the college expense without scholarship!
It is too bad the thing didn't stay with the use of the old wooden packing crate origin... like rules that said, you can make what you want but you have to use a soap box and it has to look like one when you are done!
The idea that kids could build these professional level racers... or afford even the materials is not sane on the face of it. The whole thing was a fraud... and even as a kid it was obvious to me... and really driven home with comparison of my friend's experience. You know I just lost interest for that reason and never even went to see the race. Why do parents and adults think it is OK to do these things to kids... just reinforces to the regular kids... their betters are better because their parents are rich and stupid cheats!
I had a shirttail relative, a second cousin, who won his city championship one year. He didn't have many other things to be proud of, with a dysfunctional family and a terrible home life, but that year everyone in the family was envious of him. I'm glad he won and got a trip to Akron.
Yeah! He got to be with the big time cheaters!!
RIP my tweeters in my computer speakers.
It is almost unwatchable. I wish there was a better film transfer.
In need of a good audio nerd edit and repost for sure.
@@filthylucreonyoutube I agree about the history. The audio definitely started with an (for the time) industry standard television audio eq curve, in mono, and is very compressed for broadcast. The dub, most likely, scrubbed even more low frequencies as the audio volume was boosted creating quite noticeable distortion and, likely, peaking in certain upper mid and high frequencies as it recorded to the second source. Depending on the levels as it crashed into the RUclips system, it was most likely squashed even more so now it's brittle as all hell. I need to download it and look at the wav file in a DAW. I bet it looks like music from the early 2000s all brick-walled and in a spectrum analyzer, nothing below 500hz and a huge spike at 6000 and up.
That line would fit well in a song by Kraftwerk.
It's like the sound effects in Fist of the North Star after Kenshiro pokes someone and their head starts to balloon before exploding.
Anyone notice how thin the general public was 44 years ago? It's amazing how diet has changed American girth.
So basically they put an electromagnet in the nose, that rested against the metal starting bar. When the bar was dropped, to start the race, the magnet would stick to the pole as it dropped, and pull the car forward, giving it a slight advantage.
Wow, you figured that out, huh? Brilliant. I guess they should list you in the credits as the assistant narrator 50 years after the fact.
@@booifojoe Shut up.
Thank you. I didn't want to watch the whole video, I just wanted to know what happened.
You got it
That’s what I figured. Didn’t want to watch the video either.
My brother raced in this race. My dad played a part in exposing the cheating. It was our 2nd trip to Akron.
We were friends with Diane from Putnam county, NY. Here nickname was "Pinky."
Both my brothers are in this video at 8:05 and 9:54. I didn't make the cut! LOL
I was able to win and take my family back to Akron in 1974. Because that was the last year for the derby in my town, I am still the reigning champion! LMAOOOO
Agreed. Usually the family just has to cut of one of their own fingers. Of course they can choose which one. High Four!
That’s really cool! Fun to watch this time in life.
Congrats Champ!!I would have loved to have been involved in the Soap Box Derby. I did participate one year in the Pinewood Derby, lol. I spent weeks carving and getting my little car ready. My car immediately jumped out in front at the start of my race, but about halfway down it flew completely off the track and that was it, no do-overs or anything like that.It sure was a lot of fun though.
Awesome stories, thanks for sharing the good memories! 👍
That is awesome! :)
The reasons people thought there was cheating was due to his race times. He was winnings by a margin that was much more than other races. Also, his times got slower with each subsequent race, not faster. This was due to the battery getting weaker with each race.
If they had neodymium magnets back then the nose would have stuck to the bar and gone slower.
@@alwaysopen7970
Neodymium wouldn’t be any good coz it had to be an electro magnet or the stewards setting the car up on the start line would have noticed it “clamp” onto the start gate.
I participated in the Derby in "69--72. My older brother won in Eugene, Oregon in 1970 and raced at Akron. There were two extremes in the Soap Box Derby in those days: organizers who didn't take it seriously enough, and adults who too it too seriously and cheated. A perfect storm. The Soap Box Derby still goes on, but now everyone uses kit cars. Most kids aren't learning the engineering and fabrication skills like we were in those days.
I raced in 1960 61 and 62. I really followed the rules, and even kept receipts because the rules even specified how much you had to spend. I wouldn't let my dad help. I wish i was still that kid, before the world corrupted me. I won a few heats over the three years. I have so many happy memories building and racing. Todays derby is nothing like the one i participated in.
I don't believe you
Yes there is two styles an open and a they have to match to the inch/cm in the specs and the weight or the vehicles get disqualified.
Do they give out “participation trophies” now?
Wow, Ronald we raced the same years, I was in Seattle. My last year in Seattle I lost (18") to the eventual winner. He placed third at Akron in 72. His Dad was a big participant but I was proud to have built my own car and learned a ton in the process, a priceless life lesson. Totally concur with your words. Take care!
Leave it to adults to screw up a kid's sport.
Ken Burke the worst of the bunch are the race officials who knowingly let the sport be corrupted.
@@71nortcomm, I agree. they should have had an open class
$30'000 prize money. In 1971 that was a real good yearly income, equal to over 100k today.
Leave it to adults to f**k up the world
@@labrd41 I believe we found the root of the corruption.
I like the dog stroller across the track as they're coming down hill that's cool
Slice of Americana right there!
So true and don't forget about the lack of spectator protection where earlier a car veered off into the crowd, breaking someone's ankle. Reminiscent of group B days.......
I remember as a child I participated in the soap box derby I work hard on my derby car supposed to be built by Us kids. I remember kid showed up with his fiberglass cocoon derby car. This kid was younger and smaller than me . Hit me that's when I found out people cheat all the time. My father did not help me with mine . I got Materials wherever I could. I tried hard build this car the way they told us to. I took my car to the derby mr.fix it said my car way too much with me in it. So I could not race. They told me I would have to lighten it up and I'm looking at the car just being a kid going how the hell do I do that. My father worked at a textile mill and he worked all the time I don't blame him I was one of six kids. He spent his time trying to feed us. Derby left a bad taste in my mouth the rest of my life.
Did you not get a copy of the rule book to find out the maximum allowable weight? Seems pretty elementary. You can't just show up on race day with whatever you brung.
I'm sorry your experience was not good. The derby is meant to be a father-son effort. The dad teaches the son on how to do wood working and other skills. We scrounged for materials too. The fiberglass cloth we used was from old curtains. I had to sand off the pattern in some of the cloth!! LMAO
@@s.sestric9929 yeah I got a copy of the rule book I was 6 pounds overweight with me in it . Keep in mind my age and trying to build it by myself. I can tell by your question you are nothing more than a mama's boy. That's the only dick head that would ask a question like that. Growing up on Mill Hill we didn't have a lot of scales to weigh our cars. Pretty little momma's boy like you probably wouldn't have lasted too long in my neighborhood. It was a very good lesson teaching me to be independent. Yeah the Derby taught me a lot.
@@dmonat there was a lot of kids there that built their own cars with their dads. You could tell the dad helped and just didn't build it. Certainly nothing wrong with that if your father has the time and the resources. I'll remember guy named Randy him and his dad was pretty cool his dad somewhat trying to help me once I was out there. To lighten it up would just destroy my car. I'm sure the Derby was a lot of fun for them. As it should be. Be honest I don't remember that much about it I just remembered mr. Fix it he was a ass-hole. Me and the boys back in the neighborhood we had a lot of fun with that car you could put three of us on there and haul ass.
@@nautiquecowboynautiquecowb5317 Half a century later you're still an embittered and angry person. I urge you to just let go and quit fighting lost battles in your head over and over again. Life's too short.
'Chopped people down like wheat' 😂 😂 😂
It wasn’t exactly Le Mans 1955... 😄
@@5roundsrapid263 My thoughts exactly.
I know right LOL would it have been that much trouble to throw down some hay bales?
Several cokes were spilled and a hotdog dropped in the chaos as well
The horror...the horror.
Jimmy was complicit here too - he had to know about the button behind his helmet, and certainly about the "fail safe" thumb-operated switch.
My grandpa got me into this in the mid nineties up through the 2000's. Great memories from back then. he's been in it since 1970 my mom is 1976 world champ and my uncle is 1977 world champ. My gramps is 85 now and still involved in the derby.
Why do I feel like there’s a mom in that crowd somewhere peddling an ambrosia jello recipe?
Absinthe jello recipe, prolly. 70's were off the chain.
I wonder how many Karen's are there
Ironically, my mom always called it Watergate Salad. I think the hotel served it long before the scandal.
That is still a staple on our Thanksgiving table lol.
😂😂😂
"Cynical adults for whom victory justified any means" .... Welcome to 2020
Jimmy's uncle wanted him to maintain a high level of competition...by cheating. Yeah great morality.
I find it hard to believe those kids could do all that fiberglass work by themselves.
I built a fiberglass car very similar to those in the film when I was 13, did 95% of the hands-on work myself, but had an uncle who had lots of experience directing my every move. There was a fair amount of tear-up do-over involved and endless Bondo/sanding/grinding because I wasn't skillful enough to lay up glass with a perfect finish first try. Fiberglassing is just one of many skills I was "forced" to learn when racing Derby.
It wasn't easy. The first thing we learned was to not put resing in a Dairy Queen banana split dish. The resin melted the plastic and we had a puddle on the floor! LMAO
One other memory was actually putting the car in the living room so that the fiberglass would cure because the garage wasn't heated. My mom was not happy!! LOL
We built our cars with the same technique as making a canoe. Wooden slats are tacked to temporary wooden bulkheads and the ends were rabbited into a wooden nose and tail piece. This technique was stronger than laying fiberglass over a Styrofoam mold.
Did anyone notice how thin people were 50 years ago? Even the kids weren’t fat!
People have been cheating at racing as long as there has been racing. They still do it today. " It's not cheating if you don't get caught "......Smokey Yunick
Fine line between cheating and innovation
If you're not cheating, you're not trying
And you read the rules to see what's "not" in the rules.
fuck smokey yunick.
Or as D.W. put it "We weren't rule breakers so much as rule makers." For instance it wasn't illegal to run extra fuel line so your car would hold more fuel until someone got caught with a bunch of extra fuel line looped around. No telling how many times that trick had been used.
21:10 is where the cheating is revealed
wish i would of saw this after 7 mins of scrubbing the video haha
Thank you !
lol, need to be pinned.
Magnet pulls the car toward the release barrier, giving in an infintesimal amount of extra speed..
Would be interesting to get a physicist to calculate how much of a bonus this might have given.
Probably more impressed they actually x-rayed the car.
TY
16:38 Shows the actual cheating..
I always thought the Barbie Car downhill races were more exciting.
More alcohol and higher stakes, downhill Barbie car racing is my kinda game.
Not to mention the topless women foot race at halftime
This cheating had been going on years before this. I was in the Detroit soap box derby and I always had a fast car but when I was 14 around 1962 I went to the race and had a fast car but there was one car that when the car took off it shot out of the gate and was a length ahead of everybody. In fact as we watched from the starting line the car would put there brake on but still shot out ahead by a car length. I lost but this car went on to win and went to Ohio for the race. We could not figure out how this car did it but after 1973 we knew. The magnet was used back then.
thats very true my father knew of a family here in akron whos boy was in the derby for many years - his father (even though you were not supposed to tamper w/ the wheels and axles) machined the wheels and axles to a precision running clearance and another family member had access to a wind tunnel where his car body was sent for the aerodynamics these kids had not built those cars for many years
I was in the Detroit Soap Box Derby around 1962 also. My uncle was an engineer at the GM Tech Center in Warren Michigan. He said that other fathers were having their derby cars tested in GM’s wind tunnel. My steering cable was broken after the trial runs - when the race officials lined the cars up for their official races. A race official had to repair the broken 500 pound aircraft cable. It would have taken a lot of jostling of the car to have broken that cable. I won the first heat but lost in the second heat to the car that would end up winning that year’s race. Coincidence? Also, all of the winning cars had exquisite fiberglass bodies with multiple coats of lacquer. Obviously nothing an 11 year old kid could do. Bitter? Not really because it taught me a lot about the ethics and morality of this country.
In my town nothing like this existed, but I used old hand push lawn mower wheels and scrape twice reclaimed lumber and pipe to build a coaster with roap and foot steering drag up and ride down the cow trails and roads around the area. It is a miracle that I survived. Some of those hills were extreamly steep and crooked with no shoulder and barbed wire fences.
I didn't find out about soapbox derby until I was far too old to ride one. However, I did have a Radio Flyer and Calvin and Hobbes opened my eyes to its possibilities. With no brakes it's a wonder I didn't ever break anything. Learning to lay it on its side in the grass at the bottom of the hill instead of flying into the gorge like Calvin was an acquired skill.
Tom that's hilarious, this is my first time even hearing about these things. I've only ridden and raced dirtbikes all my life and your creations sound like a blast to ride down those cow trails lol. Rope & foot steering kinda like a rudder in an airplane?
Thomas LeMay you were lucky to have barbed wire to stop you. We had to race on a road riddled with land mines and next to alligator infested waters. Did I mention the alligators had ak47 guns,
I remember those, a good set of wheels was for the rich kids, one time a neighbors kid built one with a steering wheel mounted on a broom stick with a front and back support, problem was it steer right when he turned left, he had the rope wrapped around the broom stick the wrong way, I figured it out and fixed it for him. my first auto repair at age around 8, lots of fun,
@@johnlepkowski3831 Alligator wielding Ak-47s? luxury. We had nothing to stop us. I mean i literally grew up in a voidlike plane of existence.
I miss Derby Downs being packed like that and absolutely electric with excitement. I raced from 1992-2001 -- Stock champ in 1995 and Superstock champ in 1997 from Spokane, WA, and Master's champ in 1999 from Salem, OR. I'm glad I got to experience Akron mostly like this. Also, the mention of Spokane, Washington in this video is AWESOME!
I was born and raised in Akron, and I know the history of the Soap Box Derby. Derby Downs is an Akron landmark.
Thanks for sharing....I was 10 in 73...and it brought my youth right back to me....2 thumbs up....
Me too, just turned 63.
When one looks for loopholes, they often end up being hung by that very loop.
A loophole is a carve out to keep something legal or within the rules, this incident was flat out cheating.
Sucked in by the narration. I thought I was watching ESPN classics for a bit.
@J M I always think of him as the NOVA voice. His voice was used in one of the first sampled hit songs, Paul Hardcastle’s “19”. He fought for and got royalties.
@@5roundsrapid263 Oh wow- I THOUGHT his voice sounded familiar in that song.
Turbo encabulator guy?
I was told this story by Jimmy, now Jim, himself. I had the good fortune to spend a bit of time with him about a decade back. He didn't share this lightly, not like a casual story of "the time I...". We were having a serious discussion about some of our old "stuff", and he shared the story as something that impacted his life very intensely. He said he rarely told the story, and it was a very traumatic experience for him. He explained that he had no idea that he was cheating, and was running the car as his uncle had taught him. Many of the cars were engineered by parents, and he thought his was no different. Just doing everything needed to win, including the button. He knew he was doing some stuff. He thought everyone was doing the same. He was genuinely elated to win. He didn't find out about being caught until he heard it on the evening news. He was shocked to hear his name, and the label of cheater, and the comparison to Nixon and Watergate. His life was overturned. It was very depressing. It's never easy being the bad guy. As an adult he is a good man. He is modest, highly conscious, spiritual, and kind. I still think about the day we went kayaking on a beautiful like, at his invitation, and in his boats. I found a single large deer antler that day, but we couldn't find the other side. I found out later that he went back several time to look for it, hoping to surprise me. His story also reminded me of my Pinewood derby experience. I built my car myself, although everyone thought my dad had built it. I was already a good craftsman, having spent several years building model rockets and airplanes, learning about building and finishing techniques, and taking it a little too seriously as a young perfectionist. I still excell at these skills, and I know many men and women who do too. Back then, though, not many kids cars looked as good as mine! I remember feeling mad that people thought I hadn't built my car. I'm pretty sure they didn't give me 1st place in design because of it. On the other hand, the car was built to max weight, the nail axles were polished and "lubed" with graphite. All the current strategies needed to win, that were available to anyone, were used. I won 1st place in speed. I still have the car, and the trophy! Jim, if you are reading this, I hope it's OK that I shared what I did, and I hope you are well.
David Lowell, did jim mention if his car was the same car used the previous year?
Interesting contrast of stories.
This is how we all learn (as children) about the corruption in this world. Most of us don't have to do it before a national audience.
I was also told this story by Jim himself, probably around the year 2000 or just a few years earlier. You are correct his life was really messed up after this. Had to change his last name etc. etc.. I will not reveal what it is. It's now 2023. You are correct, he is a very nice man and very spiritually oriented. Haven't seen nor heard of him in about 14 years. Hope he is doing well. I kinda miss him.
When I was a boy in the mid 60's, the race was held in Ravenna, Oh. It was called the Portage County Soap Box Derby. The race started at the original Midway Lanes. It ran down the hill toward Kent on Route 5. The finish line was just past an overhead steel railroad trestle that is still used today.
Thx for sharing! I happen to be gal Columbia,sc who ran heat with Cronin kid. It was photo finish. Dad asked do you want me to debate this cause it’s not right. To keep drama down I said no. Although first girl to have won best upholstery. Lol
My childhood friend raced about this time, he designed and built his car ENTIRELY by himself, his father didn't live with him ... his car looked REALLY bad, and ran out of control and crashed in the first heat ... we all laughed. Years later, I'm really proud of that kid he was .. among all those other kids driving cars their father built and spent big bucks on.
classic cheating story: not soap box but....at one of the first few nascar races at daytona track the winner was followed into victory lane by the second place finisher who was yelling "he's cheating ...i know he's cheating" when asked how he knew that he said "because i'm cheating every way i can think of...and i had nothing for him out there"
F-ing Great
@@yellowduck8061 class act buddy
Its not technically cheating unless its in the rule book, I can bet the rule book didn't say anything about magnets lol. Look up the Dodge Boys (Alderman and Geoffrion) from NHRA pro stock back in the 90's if you want a good cheating story (although they were never caught) but NHRA had to add "no nitrous" to the rule book after that.
@@Cutlass_Rudd others read the rule book and say to themselves it says we can do this...when i raced my view was ...it doesn't say we cant do this. always considered myself a failure if the tech inspectors didn't have a conversation with the rule book in hand.
Nobody and I mean nobody can deconstruct a rule book like racers. Been that way forever.
I built my Soap Box Derby car in 1959 and was ready to race in the Derby on the Air Force Base (Ramey AFB) in Puerto Rico. And just before the race my Dad got orders to ship out immediatly, with Family, back to the US. I never got to race my car. Had to leave it behind in the Dumpster behind our house. Never built another one for the Derby, but my wife and i enjoy going to Marble Falls TX for the Gravity Races. Homemade Derby cars for Adults.
That would have been tough for a young boy to leave his dream derby car behind..life certainly has it's ups and downs...
The derby still goes on but it's not anything like it was in the 60s and 70s. Chevrolet used to be a sponser for years until they forgot how to build a good car.
Girls weren’t allowed until 1973? There’s no reason girls can’t drive a soap box racer, after all, they don’t have to parallel park it.
From a standstill, an advantage of.2 seconds gives a slight lead in the first 3-4 seconds of perhaps a foot. With identical cars, that advantage can't be overcome and translates to almost 10 ft at the end. It's like a hole shot in drag racing....every race!
My name is Cody Butler. I won Akron in 2000 Masters division. Im from Anderson Indiana. I started derby in 1996 with my father. He built cars in the 70s and 80s and told me about this story. My dad had hundreds of old derby pics and negatives... including cars from this video. Pretty neat. The derby is some of my best memories with my dad and our 2000 masters world championship is my greatest day.
Nice
I was an adult when this happened and in my circle we thought this was the funniest thing ever. There was something about an institution going SPLAT that was, and remains, absolutely hilarious. After all, no one was damned fool stupid enough to think those kids built those cars on their own.
Would have been funny if the magnet was so strong that it stayed at the top of the track stuck to the starting bar.
Neodymium would do so.
NASCAR drivers called it "gettin competitive"
“The unfair advantage”
Restrictor plate racing
@Pretty good Guy Yunick cheated the rules in NASCAR, but he claimed it was only because everybody else did too. He did stuff that nobody else thought of or would do, like snaking a 1" fuel line all though the car to hold an extra 10 gallons of gas, or smoothing the underside of a race car with body filler to gain an aerodynamic advantage. The Chevelle was really the last straw for both sides. NASCAR had just started using body templates to stop all the body modifications. The templates didn't fit Smokey's Chevelle (he claimed it was built from a roll over wreck, NASCAR claimed he chopped the top) but they didn't fit a rental Chevelle Smokey brought in either. In the end, NASCAR gave him a "fix-it" list that was reported to be two pages long, including a request that he "change the frame".
@Pretty good Guy Smokey called it 'creative rule interpretation'
at 8:02 there are two whole seconds where no marching band is playing. This is my favorite part of the video.
Mine too. Finally some respite from that racket.
"If you're not enough without it you'll never be enough with it"-John Candy Cool Runnings
3:50 this is what life used to be like. Quite honestly.. it was a better time. Lawn Darts, No Seat Belts, Rifle Racks and all. Not a lawsuit in sight
My dad and my uncle built us a soap box derby car that looked like a 1970s supermodified. They figured since we lived at the top of a steep hill what could go wrong? My brother drove while i held on to the back for dear life and we put that sucker half way through the farmers shed door at the bottom after first taking out his kids hockey net. A good laugh was had by all and we spent the next day learning how to build and hang a new door. Not a helmet in sight, good times.
Jarts and BB guns together. Banana seat bikes, commercial skateboards just came out. Kids couldn't deal with the trucks screwed to a plank of wood these days.
@@alwaysopen7970 they are going to get an education.
I love the presidential escort for the kids 😁 that’s too cool! god i miss being a kid back then
What went unnoted was that Jimmy’s uncle went on to mentor Todd Berrier while he was crew chief for Kevin Harvick during his time at RCR.
Every type of racing has been affected by cheating and high cost technology, even human running events. Sad that what starts out as a grassroot competition ends up like this.
Jimmy eventually took up bicycle racing and changed his name to Lance Armstrong.
Hahahaah
Ahhaahhaa!!! Good one!!
Where our roided up cyclists beat all the other roided up cyclists from around the globe😆
@@McClellan71 BUTT HURT PRINCESS SNOWFLAKE 😆
I had my two boys in Cub Scouts and every year they would have the Pinewood Derby race. It was sad the the scout leaders did nothing
to stop the fathers from influencing the way the cars were built. The winning cars were nothing more then a slab of flat wood with lead
weight added to reach the maximum weight. Nothing was ever said or done to allow boys with little guidance to be able to compete.
The competition was so corrupted with fathers creating things that could not be considered a car, just to win.
As a father, I also did help my boys. Actually, that was the idea. For fathers to spend time with their sons and build something together.
I would help them create their own vision of a car. None of these cars every won a race. My boys quit the scouts after a couple years.
Even at their young age. They could see that the playing field was not always level. This story reminds me of our days around the
Boy Scouts. Fairness and fair play was always at question.
Great memories the soup box was so much fun I came close but the cars at the finals were so darn fast. I had a great time racing. My pine woods won every year 76, 77. 78 was the year I got 2nd in speed.
I know exactly what you mean. When I was growing up, I participated in Cub Scouts and the Pinewood Derby. My dad's only input was to ask me what shape to cut it, cut the pine block with a saw, and hand it back to me. I was completely in charge of everything else. There were other kids in our group who's parents did everything and their cars were highly engineered to win with all sorts of little tricks. Consequently, my car always lost. When my two boys got into Scouts, I promised myself that I was not going to let the same thing happen to them. So I helped them shape, sand, and paint the car. Then we took it to my brother, who was an engineer. He spent a long time sanding and polishing the nails and making sure that the weights were distributed perfectly on the cars. He also did a lot of other little pinewood derby tricks to make the cars go faster. And, as a result, my boys' cars did well. But I couldn't help notice some of the cars of boys who either didn't have a father or who's fathers were like mine. Those cars were built by little kids and did not do well against cars built by adults. I could see the same disappointment on their faces that I had. Likewise, my kids were happy that they won but at the same time they weren't as happy as they would have been if they had built it completely on their own. So far as I know, there was no cheating involved, but it was more of a competition between fathers than kids. I wish that I had a solution to make it more like what it was intended to be, but I don't.
The two saddest stories on race day is the kid with the car who did none of the work, and the kid with the car who did all of the work.
We didn't do it when I was in Cub scouts. Had some sort of rocket derby...my dad didn't help. When my son was i cub scouts I helped a bit, but his pack also had a parent's class. Can't say other dads didn't build their kids but I thought it was a good way to let the kids build their cars and let the parents go crazy at the same time.
@@kevinbutler1114 Do you realize how FU your story is.
John DeLorean was responsible for Chevrolet ending their sponsorship in 1972.
How ironic that a master cheater is tied to this saga.
@Alastair Dow He used to be a hero of mine. But the more you learn about the guy, the more you find out he was a total sociopath. Perhaps his most despicable cheat was selling a ranch property to a salt-of-the-earth elderly farm couple for them only to find out he didn’t own it in the first place and they wound up losing the land and their money. Sooper Dooshy in my book. Yes, they should have done a deeds check but they were old-school “handshake” folks and they trusted him - he was the great and famous John DeLorean after all! There are a few exposes on him you can find on YT.
@Alastair Dow Here ya go. I'm a pontiac fan and thought JD was an unsung hero, ruined by DMC's collapse and tabloid lies. Then I saw this; holy crap if even 20% of this is true, he should've been hung, Hero my ass
ruclips.net/video/CnjUfw5Ixxc/видео.html
_Scandal: The Fast Lane (John DeLorean / Roy Nesseth documentary)_
@@One--Two Yup, that’s the one. JD was a Class A Dirtbag.
@@mattskustomkreations
Ooooooh his dastardly deeds run deep.
Thanks for the film. I raced in Akron in 67. It was bigtime then. 30,000 in prize money
what? No way!
Considering the massive tooling costs for the top builds it stands to reason. Wind tunnel testing is not cheap. (I mean my parents just bought balsa wood & provided emotional support - i did all the work i promise!)
David Thanks for posting this video.
The Akron track is 27 minutes from me next to the defunct Rubber Bowl
I'm appalled by the lack of fire retardant suits being worn by the drivers.
Jimmy would go on to have a successful career in Washington DC as a lawyer
Sounds about right.
Boo-boo. That's another James Gronen.
I've never heard of this and I've lived in Columbus, GA for 20 yrs!
That was a great film, where on earth did you dig it up from?
Hello You!
But...Hello You!
donkey kong on dvd
@@Fatzko the spanish civil war on vhs
Probably dug it out of a thrift store bin somewhere
This is fantastic. So much better than most stuff on TV now and forget "reality" shows, THIS is quality reality content. Brilliant!
After 5 seconds I could have told you those karts weren't made by 12 year olds
I grew up and still live in Columbus, Georgia, so it was nice to see the car with my hometown written on the side.
8:32 And the crowd is electric with excitement!!!
Awesome video. Thank you.
Unless there was an explicit rule being broken, this proves ingenuity....
The battery represents an additional (motive) power source in what was obstinately
supposed to be a (self-contained) gravity powered vehicle.
The argument that the falling starting gates are themselves gravity powered does not hold true because the carts do not carry them across the finish line; else the competition would always come down to whomever had the most responsive and powerful trebuchet launcher.
[thought tangent, posted per self-imposed rule]
And I doubt even the era that still looked at historical infantry weapons (plumbata, caltrops, bola, etc) and thought "these will make fantastic children's toys" (Jarts/lawn-darts, jacks, Clackers, etc) - would have the stomach for that.
Then again, miniature full-power ovens,irons, etc were popular; And firearms and other ballistic weaponry were commonly advertised for children. --Yet-- I --still can't-- imagine society trying to flatten the population curve of the baby-boom so overtly.
Oh right, "Action Park". Disregard the above, I have convinced myself that they would have reached that point *if* the prize-sponsor didn't pull out.
@@LynxSnowCat That was quite a rant. I have no idea what you have against boomers: we had the best childhoods. No helicopter parents, we could play all day and be home when the street lights come home. No one bothered you and there were plenty of kids outside doing the same thing as you. Video games didn't arrive to ruin life until a few years after this video.
I remember when this happened -- it made the news, but I never saw this before. Thanks for posting.
What is even more discerning, is the lessons that their mentors are teaching them for life.... In retrospect, in 1973 this was a national outrage, today, I doubt if anyone would consider this more than a minor offense. Just look at last years baseball league champs (pro), they cheated, were caught and nothing happen with the title (IIRR), and the players involved (with their multi-million dollar salaries), with the exception of 1 (IIRR), got more than a "hand-slap". A sad day for humanity and the reputation the USA once had...... imho of course
Magnet Lives Matter
Outstanding video. I have some memories of this when it occurred but we were more of a football, baseball neighborhood so this didn't get much attention in Brooklyn. It was considered a rich kid thing. Leave it to adults to spoil a childs fun..... and innocence.
when I was a kid I heard about this story, but that story I was told was different. I was told, because the magnet was so strong the cheater ran into the other kid and killed him. good video. I am glad to see it
Naw, I heard the other boy had iron tooth fillings and he died when the magnet tore them out of his head. That's what my older brother said who knew a kid whose cousin was there.
@@Paul-ou1rx LOL so this video is a cover-up story, wow
I grew up in a salvage yard...I remember this because they put a diagram in the Sunday paper... My old man cut out the picture stapled it to the wall of the office and printed our company name on the car as the sponsor!
Was there a rule in place at the time of using magnets? Sounds like great engineering at the time. I guarantee anyone in the top 10 were cheated up.
and the children did all the work! The parents only bought balsa wood, sticky tape and a few nails. Little timmy purchased the vacu-form and cnc workshop with his paper-run pocket money and was able to access NASA's wind tunnel by volunteering.
There used to be the Sand Hill Challenge soap box derby, brainchild of Buck's of Woodside restaurant owner Jamis MacNiven in Menlo Park California. This was a fun event full of young children from Silicon Valley engineers..!!
Congressman Jimmy Grogan is alive and well today.
At the time this film was made, I was 11 or 12 and somehow got a set of Soap Box Derby wheels/axles identical to the red ones seen here. Never built a car, but did figure out that you could hang the front wheels of a skateboard over the axle, sit on the board with your feet up, and hang on to the axle to steer it. It would flat out fly down the hill our street was on. And if you tried to brake using your feet, Flintstone style, it'd easily burn the sole/heels off your gym shoes in a day. Got chewed out for doing that to a new pair of Converse. What was funny is that shortly after getting a new pair, we were playing football with our friends Boxer dog. You ran around the yard carrying a football and the dog would go nuts trying to "tackle" you if you had the ball. While running from him, he nailed me from behind by chompin' down on the back of my shoe, which ripped the entire rubber sole off in one piece. The rest of it was still laced to my foot looking normal. I got another ass chewin', and the dog had lived up to his name. It was Butkus.
Nice story. Lol
Yea ,i remember those Chuck Taylors.
It would be interesting to see where they are now
Sad part is that I’m about 45 minutes from Akron and never new that this took place there.
Change the starting gates to wood, problem solved.
The flatbed truck was owned by TOP HAT TOWING , Buddy Pugliese from New Rochelle.. it had air bags, you can see it's unusual single rear wheel design and the flaps in the bed that allow the wheel to go through when lowered .. I worked for Buddy for years, he taught me A Lot ! I went on to own Eagle Towing in NR and made a great living ... awesome video ! RIP Buddy.. you are very missed..
Now i realize why GM pulled out, i read that Chevrolet operated the derby through 1971, pouring about $1 million a year into the race. When the automaker withdrew its sponsorship and clout in 1972, the race dwindled from 252 participating cities to 138 in a single year.
In world war 2 the average age of a combat soldier was 26 ........
I miss Derby Downs being packed like that and absolutely electric with excitement. I raced from 1992-2001. I'm glad I got to experience Akron mostly like this. Also, the mention of Spokane, Washington is AWESOME!
I distinctly remember this happening I was in the US military in Texas and saw the derby on TV
Thank you for uploading this film. I'm quite surprised, that a simple electromagnet can help you to win a race because I think this magnet at the start point made max. 1 or 1.5 seconds not more. Or do you know, how exactly it was worked out? It's just for interesting and information for me. Here in Austria and Germany, for some races it's equal what you use, the only forbidden thing is any sort of motor, the rest is up to you. cheerio Toni
Toni Turnwald ya 1 second in soap box derby is huge when most races are won or lost by less than 10th of a second.
1 second is huge in motorsport....
It seems pretty ludicrous for anyone to truly believe that those sleek beautifully finished cars were built by 11 year old kids without adult help.
Most of them seem so tight, that I guess they had to take into consideration how much the kid might grow before the championships.
I was 12 when this happened and and even with all the crap and bad press I still wanted to race in the derby. I had a small problem it's the same year I had a growth spurt and went from 5 foot 2 to 6 foot tall that killed me ever getting in to a derby car that and I tipped the scales at 159 pounds.
I remembered I had to take 6 pounds out of my car was the cut off 150 lb? because I believe mine weight 156 with me in it. I'm 65 years old now I just remember mr.fix it told me I was too heavy to race and they just push me over to the side and said next. I remember being by myself as my father worked all the time and the neighbor had actually taken me out to the Coliseum were had to weigh in before the race. So standing there by myself mr.fix it tells me I need to lighten the car up 6 lb which I worked on so hard I didn't know what to do . Seems like one of the volunteers maybe it was the Jaycees he took one look at my car just kind of shook his head .So I didn't race. Somewhat made me a big boy at a very early age especially when I seen all these fiberglass cocoon cars. My car was made out of wood and masonite siding . I also was a rather tall kid However me and my friends had a ball with my car in the neighborhood it would hold two or three kids going downhill my braking system was the best. Of course I sook the wood out from underneath my sister's beds good thing I had 3 sisters to make my axles and my braking system and that's all the wood I could find. My car was literally built out of scrap material. I guess it would have been great to have a father who could help me out but one of six kids just didn't work out with him working at a textile mill. I guess he was just too tired to care but I still had a great father. I guess the only ones that won't like my post are the ones with the fiberglass cocoon cars but to the boys like me built their own my hat's off to you.
I was raised In Akron. In 57 or 58 I drove my neighbors car in a practice session. At that time they used 3 lanes. The middle lane had a distinct advantage. Somehow, the crown in the track made the middle faster. At that time the middle lane won about 70% of the time. I was in the right lane. The middle lane beat me by about a length. The left lane and I tied. I remember feeling cheated. But, it wasn't my car and it wasn't an official race. Then and there, I decided I wasn't going to build a car for the next year.
yes, it would be less friction on the wheels.
They are SUPPOSED TO calibrate the gates to compensate for this.
We had one lane faster in my hometown races.
interesting story. not sure why the punchline was revealed in the beginning and similarly the ending was interspersed with comments about the cheating and the aftermath while events were shown to still be unfolding. still very interesting.
This is what RUclips _should_ be for.
There was cheating in my Cub Scout Pinewood Derbies when I was a kid. My hometown is the world headquarters of a MAJOR engine manufacturer, attracting world class engineering talent. Each year, my cars were legit - I designed and built them myself. Sure, Dad taught me how to use tools and sand them, but I built them and painted them, as it SHOULD be. But somehow, gee I don’t know how, the kids with Engineer dads- SOMEHOW their cars looked like they were built by NASA! Even the paint jobs looked like they had been done at a body shop. And gosh, somehow those cars always won, go figure.
One year I actually had a contender- once I figured out my car actually ran better backwards! I made it to the final heat with 3 ringers as competition. I was so excited I forgot to put it on the track backwards and it came in dead last. As you can tell, I’m TOTALLY over it now. Lol
My Pinewood derby car won its first few heats and in the final, the guy putting the cars on the track, dropped mine, breaking it, without even looking at me or commenting, he picked it up, handed it to me and took another car and put it up on the track. I was 9 or so, and was trashed for months, but I’m over it now...kinda...
@@stevestikihutable and this was an “adult”? It would have been a shame if his car was accidentally keyed down both sides without comment. I’m sorry that happened to you. First world problems I know... but they still hurt.
@@mattskustomkreations You two meet all the background criteria of a mass murder. Get help NOW!!!!
@@booifojoe haha! I’m beyond all help.
@@mattskustomkreations Well, just stay out of my yard then. :)
This was ridiculously interesting! Thank you
Look no corporate logos smeared all over the place in letters 3ft tall.
'FORMULA' snobs re:'NASCAR', "WWF On Wheels!".
Wow this is very interesting . Thanks for such a great upload
I’m all for rule bending and innovation in racing but... teaching your kids to cheat to win has life long effects.. not cool. That being said, electro magnet was very clever!
I think of the orange crate ,two by four ,mix matched wheel jobs my friends and I hobbled together with bent ,rusted nails ,then look at the cars these kids were racing and thought that this just the FIRST time someone was caught cheating. I'm sure it had been going on for some time.
You rack disciprine. If you havent built your own wind tunnel & CNC workshop, and can design an ultimate car with your programmed CAD machine by the time youre 8 - Youre hopeless!
thats what i did. My dad just bought the stickytape and balsa wood. I promise
@@fredfinks I recall watching these races on wide world of sports and even then found it impossible to believe those cars were not either built by parents or engineers . The only participation by children was the actual driving(if a midget could have been found ,even kids would have been left out all together)
@@stevenmccart1597 Im an adult, ive built a backyard shed, can do basic carpentry, brick & concrete formwork etc. I cant build a kart like that.
We used to build go karts and fly down the hill where we lived. I bet we had a lot more fun than this silly event. No parents were involved either! Just kids building go karts and having fun.
We had pure fun, too....no parents!
I grew up in Akron and the derby was always a big part of our lives. I remember Lorne Greene and the rest of the Bonanza gang would be marshals. It was a huge event right next to the Rubber Bowl overlooking the Akron Municipal Airport. MEMORIES!
The Derby and all the rubber companies were the major part of Akron's unique identity. Now no derby, no rubber companies and no Akron.
@@Sedona-cl6eg I grew up in Goodyear Heights. When I graduated from West Point., I headed overseas never to return. Everyone has either passed away or moved away. Great childhood memories. The Derby was just part of that. Akron is a great place to be from.
Jimmy Gronen, I thought his uncle was Chad Kanaus.
Great film!! My son just won the World Championship Local Stock last Saturday. He is the youngest racer in 83 years to win..he’s 8.
People still take about this race.
Definitely different racing nowadays…wish there was still this much interest. Guess it’s just to slow for some kids lol.