Roller girls and club boys. Foodies and fashionistas. It isn't often such diverse groups meet. But Saturday, on a stretch of Piedmont and 10th in Midtown Atlanta, they converge for the high-speed high jinks known as the Red Bull Soapbox race.
Over recent weeks, the 41, five-person teams selected for competition have been prepping for the race -- building themed carts, generating buzz and creating elaborate kickoff skits for race day.
For the unfamiliar, a soapbox is a non-motorized craft with four wheels and brakes designed to propel a driver downhill at top speed. The teams will race against the clock for the fastest time, but are also judged on creativity and showmanship. Red Bull Soapbox rules prohibit any stored power or external energy, and the vehicles must be less than 6 feet wide, 12 feet long and 7 feet high and weigh 176 pounds or less (driver excluded).
The winner gets a trophy made from scraps of all the soapbox cars and the chance to ride in an off-road truck with drivers Bryce Menzies or Ricky Johnson. Both athletes are sponsored by Red Bull. The winners also will attend the Off-Road Championship (TORC) Race in Charlotte as guests of Team Menzies.
This is the second Red Bull Soapbox race in Atlanta (the first was in 2009). Many of the teams, which represent eight states including Georgia, quickly learned there was nothing simple about making a soapbox car.
"It was a whole lot more work than we thought," said Robert Bolen of the I Love LA Eats team. "We have been building [the vehicle] for almost a month and getting our brand out there and selling T-shirts."
Huh? Yes, it seems being a soapbox racer also means being a master of self-promotion -- rounding up support for your team and making sure everyone knows who you are. Here is a quick look at just how far some of the teams participating in Saturday's race will go to win.
I Love LA Eats (Atlanta)
Robert Bolen, 34, and John Wehr, 32, rounded up this team of food fanatics who plan to race a soapbox outfitted as a food truck. A frame from Craigslist.com and a friend with tools helped turn a modified go-cart into the fastest food truck on the planet. LA Eats evolved a year ago when Bolen and Wehr began posting online pics of dinners they prepared for family and friends. Soon, a movement evolved. Not only did LA Eats continue to bring people together through food, it became a sort of social catalyst, connecting people with similar interests and ideas. They also began participating in events as a team -- a chili cook-off here, a Tough Mudder there. Soapbox racing is a new adventure for the team. "For us, it is not even about the 45 seconds of the race," Wehr said. "It is the two-month buildup to it." Their race day program includes a send-off for a friend moving to Miami who will have the chance to dance for the crowd in a routine choreographed by a professional cheerleader.
Atlanta Rollergirls Racing Devils (Lilburn)
Allison "Ruby Chaos" Knoch, 32, and her team of fellow Rollergirls had a dilemma when brainstorming their soapbox -- how to make sure the giant skate that is their vehicle looks like a skate without weighing a ton. Fortunately, Knoch's boyfriend has some serious welding skills, and Knoch and her teammates can work wonders with glitter. They scavenged a junkyard for some materials and headed to Home Depot for others. The aluminum chassis of their vehicle is sturdy enough to reassure driver Kelly "slamborghini" Agee, 24, that she'll be able to take those bumps with ease. An internal conversation led to the devil theme (don't ask, you kinda had to be there), but these ladies aren't selling their souls to win. "It was something exciting, and we figured we had the resources this year to do it," Knoch said. "This is a great way to get out in front of Atlanta and a bunch of people."
FIT Radio (Atlanta)
What do you get when you mix a little high-energy music with a high-energy drink like Red Bull? A group of nightclub denizens ready to ride. Russell Greene, 29, CEO and founder of FIT Radio, and Lexi Bellassai, 27, director of operations, coordinated this team of music lovers who are preparing to rock while they roll down the Soapbox race track. FIT Radio is an Atlanta-based, 2-year-old mobile music streaming application with 100,000 listeners. The team plans to give the audience a taste of its high beats per minute tunes. Their vehicle, outfitted with bike tires, hand brakes, and an '80s boombox with six speakers, will blast the FIT Radio app from an iPod as they coast downhill. Greene, the driver, will get a special intro complete with professional dancers moving to tracks from the FIT Radio genres, which include house, top 40, hip-hop, indie, rock and party.
Event preview
Red Bull Soapbox race. Noon Saturday. Free. Tenth Street between Piedmont Avenue and Monroe Drive. For more information, visit www.redbullsoapboxusa.com.
