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BANGOR – Pink flames flanked the front sides of Courtney Dunton’s No. 139 silver bullet soap box derby car, appropriately tagged with the phrase “Girl Power.”
“We picked out a theme, and my favorite color’s pink,” Dunton, 10, said before taking to the track for her first heat at Saturday’s Eastern Maine Soap Box Derby.
The Duntons live in Newburgh. First Choice Auto completed the pink and silver paint job per the driver’s instructions.
Derby President and Clerk of Record Hartley Webb and his wife, Kelly, provided Dunton with the car, which she and her dad rebuilt together.
“It gives us special time together,” Stan Dunton, Courtney’s dad, said. “She’s in sports at school, so this is something different.”
More than 40 racers whizzed down Buck Street throughout the day, and the nerves of racers and their family members were apparent as they tinkered with wheels and parents encouraged their drivers.
“She couldn’t sleep last night,” Stan Dunton said.
Courtney said she had raced a couple of times before, but this was her first time in the superstock division.
Her plan for Saturday was to keep her head down and her yellow racing shades on and stay close to the cones on her way down the track.
When asked how she prepared for the race, Courtney explained that “going down the Newburgh School driveway” was the best practice.
And although she lost the first heat, Courtney said she had fun and was ready to size up her competition in the No. 101 car for the second round.
“That’s OK. She had a good time,” Stan Dunton said as he helped his daughter back to the staging area with her car.
Although the Duntons’ morning heats went off without a hitch, not all racers were so lucky.
The first round included one Nascar-style crash moment when 12-year-old Zachary Dunning’s wheel got caught up at the bottom of the race ramp during his second heat, sending him into his opponent’s lane and car.
Both Dunning of Hampden and his opponent, Hunter Smith of Dover-Foxcroft, were not hurt and after some minor on-site repairs to their cars were ready to race again.
“This is the first time in 10 years racing I’ve ever seen that,” Derby President Webb said while working on Dunning’s car.
The double-elimination race is the precursor to the All-American Soap Box Derby held each year in Akron, Ohio. The winners from Saturday’s event will represent eastern Maine in the national race in late July. The race is now in its 71st year.
In order to participate in the local derby, racers ages 8 to 17 must have a car designed specifically for their division: stock, superstock or masters.
Kits can be purchased from the All-American Soap Box Derby for about $515, or racers can drive a used car as long as they prove they took it completely apart and rebuilt it themselves. That’s what Dunning did thanks to his sponsor, Maine Coastal Flight Center.
“The best part for Zack in building the car was using the power tools,” Scott Dunning, Zack’s dad, said.
It takes anywhere from 15 to 25 hours to construct a race-ready car, according to the derby Web site.
Drivers use a brake pedal to stop at the bottom of the hill, and the cars steer kind of like an airplane, Dunning said.
Once he had smiled for a picture in front of the car while it was being repaired to show his mom what had happened, Dunning said he was ready to race again, as long as there wasn’t a crash involved.
“I guess I was an airplane which crashed,” Zack said.
adolloff@bangordailynews.net
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Eastern Maine Soap Box Derby winners
Stock
1. Rachael Graves, Brewer.
2. Corey Worster, Carroll Plantation.
3. Jacob Legere, Bangor.
Super Stock
1. Rebecca Botting, Hermon.
2. Brittany Ogden, Holden.
3. Jonathan Stanhope, Bangor.
Masters
1. Nick Thomas, Hermon.
2. Megan Crane, Exeter.
3. Jeremy Vroom, Bangor.
Workmanship: Nathan Vidal, Bangor; Sarah Stanley, Ellsworth; and Jeremy Vroom, Bangor.
Sportsmanship: Kyle Webb, Dedham; Brent and Chris Chaffee, Bucksport; and Megan Crane, Exeter.
Decoration: Joshua Guay, Bangor; Courtney Dunton, Newburgh; and Abigail Cain, Hampden.
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