There’s not many things that can possess me to leave the house on a day with 100+ degree weather and ride my bike up the side of a volcano, but the Adult Soap Box Derby is one of them.

Volcano? Sure. Mt Tabor, in southeast Portland, is an old volcano, and as Michelle pointed out not too long ago it makes Stumptown one of only two US cities with a volcano within city limits.

Adult Soap Box Derby? Oh yeah.

fix

Only in Portland could we have an event like this: a soap box derby where teams enter their creations in either the Speed or Artsy category and race them three at a time down the sides of a volcano-turned-city park. If you can’t tell already, the one above was built for speed. As for the more artistic ones, well, how about a French snow globe?

french snow globe

Or a wrestling ring on wheels?

a bit of wrasslin'

Or a logjam, or a picnic table, or a giant scorpion.

And then, at one point, you might have seen a red semi-truck rolling by and thought, “Hmm, red semi-truck, you are kind of weak. In fact you are not going fast, and now are stopping, and now you seem to be playing an oddly familiar song from my childhood, and now you are making that distinct mechanical noise I have long associated with the Autobots…and…and…holy crap, are you Optimus Prime??”

transforming

(And really, to understand how cool this was, you have to go and watch this video from one of my local Flickr contacts. Seriously, it is well worth it to watch the transformation.)

Despite the searing heat, I had a blast watching all the races. I only wish I had planned a bit better and brought some Coronas: for the day of the races only, ten feet on either side of the race track becomes a designated beer garden.

lompoc racer pulls ahead

If there was one bad thing about the Adult Soap Box Derby, it would be this: I find that I no longer can bring myself to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is not due to a lack of evidence that I found my faith crumbling, not at all. It was because the fucker hosed me when he drove by:

flying spaghetti monster

Full photo set can be found here.