Engineers Bringing Soap Box Racing Back Again

kpw10 writes "It appears that soap box racing has made a recent comeback as traditional races are getting big attention again. But at the same it is also adapting itself into a more modern engineering challenge: pro car designers from companies like Audi and BMW just last week raced in California's Extreme Gravity Series, with super aerodynamic racers reaching speeds of 44mph. Meanwhile on the east coast, industrial designers and artists competed in the Durham "Fall Classic Soap Box Invitational" with converted lazy boy recliners and enormous eight foot wheeled vehicles. I hope this is just a sign of what's to come!" We have come a long way since the 1930's.

Re:Honestly.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a hobby. Practicality has never been a requirement of hobbies. Fishing for sport and collecting figurines may be deemed impractical by some, but those are hobbies. Hobbies bring enjoyment to those who take them up, and certainly not all hobbies are for all people. To me, blasting down a hill in a lightweight, aerodynamic toy sounds like a blast.

Modded Funny???

[Zevon 2000]

Granted, "Informative" isn't quite right, and "Interesting" doesn't come close. Maybe "Insightful"? But speaking as a male with genitalia, this comment, while worthy, is certainly *NOT* funny.

I mean, I know here at /. we don't all get the opportunity to actually use the genitalia as intended as often as we might like, but that doesn't make it funny!

Re:It can be a very dangerous sport.

[asoap]

I have no clue what it is that you tried to say. Apparently you think that we should encourage people to do dangerous things or atleast to make sure that those things stay as dangerous as possible in order to facilitate your version of evolution? So that the fittest can survive? You do know that is only one aspect of evolution? By encouraging people to do something like rock climibing in order to seperate the wheat from the chaff is ludicrous. It could be a very large possibility that people who can survive something like plauges might be the next step in evolution. It might not be the survival of the strongest muscles, but the survival of the strongest immune systems.

So in that case, let's give everyone AIDS and let those of us with the strongest immune systems stay alive! How does that sound?

While it is true that in formula one the level of safety does allow people to do stupid things like push other cars off the road. The truth is though, now people go off the track into huge run off areas. BEFORE people would push cars off the track and they would run into the tree that would be RIGHT AT THE EDGE OF THE ROAD. When you look back at to how people used to race, you wonder how the hell they stayed alive.

I've heard of stories of the Pre-war races when the cars had no seatbelts. They hadn't been invented yet. Instead they used hand grips beside the seats. I believe it was the story of Nuvolari who was racing when he raced over a bump and the mechanics hand grips ripped off and he went flying. He landed on the back of the car. The driver, Nuvolari grabbed him by his pant leg with one hand, and kept on steering with the other. He wouldn't stop the car! Racing was that important. That's insane! Are you saying that we should go back to that?

I say let's keep making racing safer. I sure as hell enjoy racing, and I always get a rush out of it. I don't see how one couldn't. But I really don't __WANT__ to die nor do I want to make things more dangerous to make things more interesting.

Re:only up to certain pt it seems, then opp is tru

[usrusr]

cars certainly have far more room between starting to lose grip and completely losing control (and road cycles are completely all or nothing in this aspect) but there's another important difference between bikes and cars:

bikes can move their center of mass closer to the sides of the roads because they are not as wide as cars, allowing for a wider curve radius in the same corner. this makes a lot more difference on the narrow streets typical for tour de france downhills than on a wide racing track.