Get involved
To sponsor, build or race in next year's Derby Downs at Redoubt Soccer Complex off Bonny Oaks Drive, contact Michael Stewart at 423-596-7726.
The history of the National Soap Box Derby has a strong Chattanooga connection.
Dayton Daily News photographer Myron E. Scott started an impromptu race for 19 boys in that Ohio city in 1934. Interest mushroomed, and the next year 34 cities including Chattanooga entered the Dayton race. Three hundred sixty two boys with their homemade cars constructed of "orange crates, sheet tin, wagon and baby buggy wheels" lined up.
The Chattanooga Times, Newton Chevrolet and Hamilton Chevrolet were sponsors. The local race course first started at the Bachman Tunnel and sloped west to Dodds Avenue. A crowded finish area during the 1934 preliminaries prompted officials to move the race course to Wilcox Tunnel sloping east and ending on a practically level space of more than a half mile. Sixty homemade gravity-powered vehicles participated.
Chattanooga's first winner in the 12-15 age category was Claude Alexander Jr. of Signal Mountain. Although having the fastest times in the Dayton derby with his "Flash No. 1" racer, he was declared the runner-up under the handicap system based on speeds in earlier time trials. Claude completed the course in 55.2 seconds but with a 4.5 second handicap, finished 1.3 seconds behind the winner, Robert Turner of Muncie, Ind. A crowd of 50,000 fans viewed that derby. Alexander's second-place finish earned him a trip to the Century of Progress Exposition (World's Fair) in Chicago.
The races continued in Chattanooga until the outbreak of World War II, then stopped.
In 1949, organizers with the sponsorship of the Chattanooga News-Free Press resurrected the contest. Starting at the crest of Ninth Street (at Park Avenue), 400 vehicles raced at intervals due west into the heart of the black business district. The winner in the "A" Division (age 12-15) was 13-year-old Y.L. Coker Jr., who was sponsored by his father's business, Coker's Grocery on Brainerd Road. Y.L.'s experience gave him a sense of accomplishment and a host of new friends.
No races were held after 1949 until 1976, when the Chattanooga Kiwanis Club reactivated the event. Derby contestants sped down a 400-foot stretch of Sixth Street near today's YMCA.
In 1973, a young racer from Boulder, Colo., was stripped of his title after being caught with an electromagnet in the nose of his car. When the driver leaned backward at the starting line, his metal helmet activated a battery power source, and the car surged forward. The youngster was disqualified. His uncle was charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and paid restitution in the amount of $2,000 to the Boys Club of Boulder.
Chattanooga's race moved in 1977 to a 1,250-foot three-lane track with a pit and parking area at the Hamilton County landfill in Harrison and continued in that location until the race was discontinued in 1983.
In 2008, Michael Stewart, an attorney at Chambliss, Bahner, and former derby participant in Roanoke, Va., resurrected the Chattanooga Derby. Hamilton County Commissioner Larry Henry, the county's Parks and Recreation department, the Tennessee Department of Transportation and a group of volunteers have joined Stewart in supporting the Derby Downs at the Redoubt Soccer Complex off Bonny Oaks Drive. Local youth will have the chance to compete in 2016 during the week of May 15 to qualify for the national derby.
In addition to Claude Alexander's original success, Chattanoogans Will Suggs in 1977, Amy Higgins in 1982 and Ray Hixson in 1982 finished second in their class in the national derby. A 2015 local participant, Charlie Hooks' grandfather was the national winner in 1949 from his hometown of Charleston, W. Va.
Lucas Johnson and Jessica Little will carry the Chattanooga banner to the national championship in Akron, which will be held this year July 21-26.
Today, both boys and girls compete in three categories - stock (ages 7-13 in simplified cars), super stock (ages 10-17 in more advanced models) and master stock cars (ages 10-17 in a Scottie Masters Kit with a fiberglass body.) Uniform part kits (including standardized wheels with precision ball bearings) are strictly regulated but allow some individual creativity. Racers can purchase kits from the national organization, the All-American Soap Box Derby, at its website www.aasbd.org.
Jerry Summers is an attorney with Summers, Rufolo & Rodgers. Mickey Robbins, investment adviser at Patten and Patten, contributed to this article. For more visit Chatta historicalassoc.org or call LaVonne Jolley 423-886-2090.