Soap Box Derby moving to Bangor Eastern Maine group selects Buck Street as site for June 2005 races

BREWER – After reviewing several locations in the area, the Eastern Maine Soap Box Derby Inc.’s board of directors decided Tuesday to move this year’s race to Bangor from Brewer.

“We’re going to race on Buck Street in Bangor,” Vicki Vroom, EMSBD treasurer, said Wednesday. “Right now it looks like it will be for this year only because of the racino. Bangor has given us their full support for a race site for future years, because Buck Street probably won’t be available past this year.”

Construction and the traffic associated with Bangor’s racino, a planned gambling facility located at Bass Park, is expected to prevent the Soap Box Derby from using Buck Street after this year’s race. Specific race locations for the following years have yet to be determined, she said.

The item has been placed on the Jan. 10 Bangor City Council agenda for final approval.

This year’s race is Saturday, June 4. Trial runs will be held Friday, June 3.

“They’re going to close one lane of Main Road between Buck Street and Dutton Street for a return route,” Vroom said. “It will be nice, and we’re going to have the trophy ceremony in the gazebo [behind the Paul Bunyan statue]. The exposure will be excellent for us. The spectators and the kids want an audience.”

The Soap Box Derby is for boys and girls ages 8 to 18 who compete in races with cars they build from a kit, typically with their parents or grandparents.

The EMSBD race is one of four held in the state, with the others in Houlton, Camden and Rumford. Participants in the EMSBD come from Penobscot, Hancock, Piscataquis and Washington counties and some of Somerset County.

The Soap Box Derby has a long history in Maine but for decades was abandoned, Vroom said.

“In 1995, Camden brought it back to the state,” she said.

The next year, the EMSBD was formed and the first race was held in Brewer on State Street.

“It’s going to be hard to leave Brewer because that’s where we started and we’ve been there for nine years,” Vroom said. “We would have liked to have our 10th [race] there.”

Vroom listed rising costs for police patrols and the fact the group couldn’t coordinate a Friday-Saturday race in Brewer as the basic reasons for the move to Bangor.

Registration for the 2005 race begins Jan. 22 and ends April 30.

Participants can stop by the Bangor Armory from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Jan 22 to sign up or check out the “Eastern Maine” link at the Web site www.mainesoapboxderby.org for a registration form.

There is a $25 fee to participate and first-time entrants need to show a birth certificate to register.

The club also is hosting a Feb. 6 display and registration at the Bangor Mall.