It was on an overcast Sunday just before the summer holidays began that Sam & Dad drove to Cockfosters, took a train to Wood Green, then trudged up the hill to Alexandra Palace. It was time for the Red Bull Soapbox Race 2015....
We quickly found ourselves a spot on a hill overlooking one of the jumps. If you've ever seen the Soapbox Race you'll know that these home-made racers often have difficulty surviving when they have to contend with obstacles.
Our "great spot" soon proved to be anything but, as everybody sitting in fornt of us inexplicably stood up when the racing began. If only they'd remained on their bums everyone would have had a great view. We decided to make our way around the top of the track and took up a spot directly opposite our first viewpoint. We were leaning on the barrier with an unimpeded view, result! And we recommend this approach should you ever decide to visit.
What was the race like? In a word, extremely fun indeed! The soapboxes, all 60+ of them, were a mixture of ramshackle to highly engineered, and were a cool and hilarious spectacle. This dinosaur skeleton was one of the best....
Sadly it didn't make it over our jump completely intact.....there were marshalls at regular intervals along the course to retrieve the debris.
Keystone Cops in attendance? Not really, these fancy dress rozzers patrolled up and down the course to make sure spectators didn't encroach over barriers etc, and put themselves in the line of fire of the flying, possibly out of control, cotraptions.
Teams have to perform a performance piece at the top of the course before they start their run, and some of the crews ran down the course behind their soapbox. Here comes Willy Wonka....
....and here comes one of his pit crew, an oompa-loompa!
Sun's out.....selfie moment!
Ah. This looks like Lego Batman and Lego Robin....but.....
....oh, and Lego Joker.....where is their soapbox?
Ah. All became clear as marshalls dragged the bashed-up Batmobile to the finish.
There will always be a piece of the Batmobile at Ally Pally.
Occasionally we'd hear a huge Oooooh from further up the track, followd by a gale of laughter. This meant there had been a crash. Fortunately we were also treated to a few spills close to our vantage point. Those front wheels are way too close together....
Competitiors were usually determined to complete the course after months of preparation, and carried, pushed, dragged their creations down the course, still completing the jumps, and saluting the appreciative crowd.
Some of the soapboxes got it just right, and were very fast as well as looking great.
Some made the mind boggle as to how on earth they managed to finish, like this top-heavy model of The Shard.
Always like a photo of a photog don't we....
This is the start ramp, with the final team of the day doing their performance piece before launch.
Saddest sight of the day was as we were making our way back to the train....the soapbox graveyard where the finished machines were unceremoniously dumped.
All in all we'd recommend giving this fun event a visit - but plan your vantage point before you get there!
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