Fredericksburg's annual Soap Box Derby is moving to Spotsylvania - Fredericksburg.com

Spotsylvania County is giving the Soap Box Derby the green light after the event ran out of gas in Fredericksburg.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved giving a newly formed committee of derby volunteers $15,000 from the Tourism Reserve to hold the derby in the county. It most likely will be run May 20 at Dominion Raceway, although a contract hasn’t been signed yet, said Keith Burgess, a longtime Fredericksburg derby official. He is a member of what is tentatively being called the Rappahannock Regional Soap Box Derby committee.

“We’re very happy that they’re funding the entire first year,” Burgess said. “Basically, I’m waiting to hear from Parks and Rec. They got the proposal from Dominion.”

The race has been renamed the Spotsylvania Soap Box Derby, something Supervisor Chris Yakabouski asked to have verified at Tuesday’s meeting. It had been called the Fredericksburg Soap Box Derby for the 21 years when it was held in downtown Fredericksburg. Contestants would race down a hill on William Street that had to be blocked off and edged with hay bales to ensure safety.

Burgess said that the committee has met with Dominion Raceway general manager Ed Pardue, and checked out the track’s drag strip. It has a hill at the end that drag racers go up to slow down. Derby contestants would do the reverse: go down the hill to speed up.

That hill is about 100 feet shorter than the one on William Street, but still meets the recommendations of the Soap Box Derby, which is headquartered in Akron, Ohio, Burgess said. It isn’t as steep, either, so race times won’t be as fast.

“There are some advantages to it being a little bit slower,” he said. “We never felt comfortable allowing 7-year-olds to race in the derby. We made the cut off at 8, which Akron allows. Now it will be open to 7-year-olds.”

Dominion has offered to open its concession stand during the derby, make bathrooms available and let the committee rent a space where vehicles could be impounded and inspected.

“We’re looking at other venues since we could only get that the day before,” Burgess said. “Having one day to inspect all the cars, it would kill all the officials. We normally take two days.”

Volunteers who’ve worked for years with the Fredericksburg derby and wanted to see the event continue formed the committee after the city’s Parks, Recreation and Facilities Department announced late last month that it had decided not to host the event this year. The race had once been the largest in the world, but the number of racers dropped from a peak of 171 in in 2002 to 79 last year. The number of spectators and sponsors had declined as well, said Jane Shelhorse, the department’s director.

“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. Spotsylvania’s Department of Economic Development & Tourism, however, saw the derby’s potential as a tourism draw.

“I think we can pitch it in a way that will show there’s more to do than your traditional things to do in the area,” said Debbie Aylor, Spotsylvania’s tourism manager. “I just got it last week, so I’m trying to digest and figure out what to do with it.”

One possibility would be to use it in a “Crush Friday” promotion, she said. The Fredericksburg Regional Tourism Partnership recently received a $10,000 grant from the Virginia Tourism Corporation for the program. It’s part of VTC’s ongoing efforts to support the U.S. Travel Association’s “Project: Time Off” initiative, which encourages people to take unused vacation days.

Spotsylvania’s Economic Development & Tourism Department recommended that the supervisors approve granting the committee $15,000, which equals Fredericksburg’s budget for the event.

“This group of volunteers are working to get themselves established as a nonprofit organization to be able to run and manage the event in the future, but with the short amount of time before the race has to be held, and the need to get the fees paid to have a sanctioned event, they will not be able to obtain this in time for this year’s race,” according to a staff recommendation submitted to the supervisors.

The funds will come from the Tourism Reserve, which has a balance of approximately $690,000. The reserve is funded by Transient Occupancy revenue and must, by law, be dedicated to tourism purposes. The Economic Development & Tourism Department also asked that, in the future, an estimated $8,000 be added to the Tourism Heritage Projects budget so the county can continue helping with the derby.

Fredericksburg is also donating its Soap Box Derby equipment, including the starting ramp and timers, to the committee. Members will hold their next meeting Saturday at Wegmans.

“This year will be a little challenging for us,” Burgess said. “This is something you generally start planning for in October. Because of the shortened time frame, we’ll have to be creative. We’ll do what we can to make it as fun for the kids as possible.”

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