Has Fredericksburg's Soap Box Derby reached its finish line? - Fredericksburg.com

Fredericksburg’s annual Soap Box Derby, once the largest in the world, may have ended its 21-year run.

The city’s Parks, Recreation and Facilities Department has decided not to host the event this year, citing such factors as a decline in participants, public interest and sponsorships in recent years.

The number of youngsters who climbed into race cars with what they’d built from a kit with the help of a parent and steered down a hay bale-flanked hill on William Street has steadily dwindled from its peak of 171 in in 2002 to 79 last year, said Jane Shelhorse, the department’s director. There was a similar drop in the number of spectators cheering them on, from a couple thousand to 400 last year.

“It was a wonderful thing when we started it,” she said. “We are now at 274 events in the city, a 21 percent increase over 2016. We just thought, especially since this is not only expensive when you look at it in terms of return and for not that many people participating, it was best to let it go.”

Shelhorse did reach out to Spotsylvania’s Parks and Recreation Department to see if it wanted to take over the derby since 55 of last year’s entrants were from that county. It declined, as did Stafford County Parks, Recreation and Community Facilities. Culpeper does hold soap box events, which area youth are now eligible to enter since that’s become their closest race location.

Soap Box Derby President and CEO Mark Gerberich said he reached out to Fredericksburg’s longtime derby director Alvin Staples after he found out that Fredericksburg was no longer going to host the derby.

“We’re trying to see if there’s somebody there or another place in town that we can run the race,” Gerberich said. “There are still options being explored.”

Staples said that he was disappointed but not surprised when he found out the city was no longer going to host the derby.

“The derby can come back,” he said. “We don’t need Stafford or Spotsylvania to actually run the thing. Most derbies in the country are run by a group of people or a club like the Lion’s Club. We don’t have to have as big a deal as we did.”

He said he feels extremely lucky to have served as race director and to have heard so many participants’ stories. There was the man who told him that he hadn’t had much of a relationship with his grandson until he helped him build his race car, for example, and the blind girl who said she loved entering the derby because she wasn’t treated like a special case.

The people he met and friends he made also proved to be an invaluable help when his daughter was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer five years ago. She recently underwent a round of radiation and is undergoing chemotherapy. Staples said family is now his main priority, although he’d be willing to help if someone decided to take over the derby and run it.

“We’d like to thank everyone for giving us memories that we’ll have forever,” he said. “It was such a great thing.”

We just thought, especially since this is not only expensive when you look at it in terms of return and for not that many people participating, it was best to let it go. —JANE SHELHORSE

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