The Billericay Mayflower Rotary Club have been hosting an annual soap box derby on the strip of London Road between the High Street and Western Road, parallel to the Sun Corner park, since 2016.
It’s always a very popular event and the Rotary Club try to make it a full day out for local families.
I was only able to stay for a couple of hours, so my apologies if I didn’t get to photograph your soap box!
This year as well as the soap box racing – which could be watched from either the trackside or on a big screen in Sun Corner – there was also a little fun fair, food and trade stands and a display from the South Eastern Vintage & Classic Vehicle Club (SEVC).
The SEVC cater to all vehicles over 25 years old (My little GT86 still has quite a long way to go!). They have a club night every second Thursday of the month at Rayleigh Lodge and they host a London to Southend classic car run as well as attending other events like this one.
Their lineup was pretty diverse. A personal highlight for me was this pre-war Buick.
Bruno Sacco and his team really got it right with the Mercedes W123 coupe. It’s such an elegant design.
If you’re thinking about getting into classic cars the MGs are a really good starting point. They have a fantastic owners club full of lots of knowledgeable people and you can still buy everything for them new if needed.
The white car pictured is an early Midget and the blue car is an MGA.
Classic Fords are the same. From Mk1 Cortinas like the one pictured, to Capris, to Sierras, to Mk1 Focus’ – there are lots of people into them and lots available to do to them.
The club also use this little Morris 1100 van as their promotional vehicle. It’s affectionately known as Buttercup.
Walking around the pits at this event is always so much fun. The teams are always really creative!
Check out the Hard Hat Chat podcast on Spotify. They have 16 episodes out at the time of writing and cover some really interesting stuff in the construction world.
Quilters junior school are always a force to be reckoned with in the soap box derby! They always bring out a fast cart!
Some of the teams are a bit more serious with it. Tecniq, based in Witham, design engineer bespoke components for supercars.
Note the dual wishbone suspension with the little shock absorbers.
ADP Classic Racing are a branch of Tecniq. They restore and prepare vintage racing cars for competition.
Another team with a fast looking cart.
Again, dual wishbone suspension with proper shock absorbers.
There were actually multiple holes on the lower arm to bolt the bottom of the shock absorber to. So if you were racing on a track with no jumps you could lay the shocks down lowering the car. It’s a very clever bit of engineering!
My favourite was this big fluffy guy though! I hope it survived the day’s racing!
The track is down a hill on London Road between the High Street and Western Road.
Before the run the teams have the option to do a display – normally a dance or a bit of acting if it’s a superhero themed team or that kind of thing.
The car is then pushed up to the top of the ramp.
Then down the ramp and away they go! The team is allowed to physically push the car to the road’s pedestrian crossing which was a couple of meters ahead of the base of the ramp. From there they had to let go or face a penalty.
Shoutout to car number 4 for being a great example! Car 4 belongs to the Treehouse Club which is a nursery based in Norsey Woods.
If you’re in the area and fancy something a bit different to do, I definitely recommend the Soap Box Derby. You can easily make a day of it, or if you find yourself double booked like I was, it’s still worth popping along to for a couple of hours!
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By Richard Francis
