When Craig Flury says the words, “Good luck, champs,” to start each heat of the 2025 All-American Soap Box Derby at Akron’s Derby Downs, racers know that the mechanism that holds their cars in place is about to release and that gravity will quickly take hold.
Flury, the local derby director in Akron, has been involved with the event for decades — first as a racer in the 1960s, and later, he said, as a volunteer, race director and board member.
For the 2018 inductee into the Soap Box Derby Hall of Fame, today’s race was most likely his last as local director, Flury said, because “we need to bring some young blood in here” to take on leadership positions…