Homemade racers shaped like prairie schooners, oversized shopping carts and a giant Nike ankle sock barreled down the slopes of Mt. Tabor Park on Saturday, as 42 teams competed in the PDX Adult Soapbox Derby with nothing but gravity, brakes and a horn to get them to the bottom. Carts hit speeds of up to 50 mph on the descent, and at least one team, the Vampires, ended its run crashing into hay bales beside the track.
The scene has become an annual fixture in Southeast Portland, drawing thousands of spectators to watch teams of two or three riders — each required to have at least one pusher to get their cart rolling — race down the extinct volcanic cinder cone that forms the park’s iconic hill. As reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting, the track itself wound past large Douglas fir trees, bright-orange cones and miniature hay bales lining the course. Volcanica took first place in its race, while Warn Industries won its own heat; Nike Design and Cornell Pump both finished second in their respective races.
A Punk-Rock Origin Story Nearly 30 Years On
The Portland derby has run for nearly 30 years, and OPB reports it was inspired by an illegal, punk-filled dash held in San Francisco back in the 1990s. That origin story lines up with a fuller account from Montavilla News, which traces the event to 1997, when Paul Zenk and Eric Foren founded it after Zenk witnessed a casual gravity race in San Francisco. What began with six participants has since grown into one of Portland’s signature summer spectacles.
The volunteer-run event is staffed entirely by community members and funded through donations and sponsors, per the OPB account of Saturday’s race. That scrappy, do-it-yourself spirit hasn’t stopped the derby from becoming a serious logistical undertaking behind the scenes. The Franklin Post reports the race is managed year-round by a five-member volunteer board that coordinates with city officials, park authorities and emergency services to deploy more than 150 volunteers on race day.
Racing Down an Extinct Volcano
Mt. Tabor Park sits atop an extinct volcanic cinder cone that last erupted more than 300,000 years ago, according to Travel Oregon, making Portland one of just a handful of American cities with an extinct volcano inside its boundaries. That geology gives the derby its signature downhill run, and it isn’t the first time Mt. Tabor has hosted organized soapbox racing — the park was home to a dedicated youth Soapbox Derby course that operated from 1956 to 1965, according to Vintage Portland…