A Day at the Derby

Sunday afternoon, we ran into a large crowd gathering around something going on in Mechelen. Naturally, we nudged our way in to see what all the fuss was about. There was a soap box race going on. Sometimes, Merlin feels strange pointing his camera at little kids, so he convinced me to get right up front to take pics of the action. Oh, the action I caught.

This young racer had on a helmet that was, cleverly, made out of a soccer ball.
At least I thought it was clever, until he got a little closer and I realized it rendered him completely unable to see anything in front of him.
This little girl was a winner. I’m not sure if she actually won anything, but she sure had that look of determination.Then, there was this little boy. He had such a cool shark car! He looked so excited! Off he went!
And then he hit a haystack.

The man who had been giving a play by play over a loudspeaker ran over right away to see if the little boy was okay.But being a true journalist – he nabbed the post-accident interview, too.
After that excitement died down, we decided to see what was going on behind the scenes.
The kids were, understandably, really into them.
I've never been in a soap box race, but I do remember making my pinewood derby car for the annual Boy Scouts race (they were nice enough to let the sisters join in the fun). I'd pick a theme and then super glue just the right amount of quarters to the top to make sure it would fly down the ramp to a victory. I think I prefer that to this soap box thing. Far less dangerous.