The Draggin Wagon (1963)

STARTER: One… [CROWD SOUNDS] two… [CROWD SOUNDS] three… [CROWD SOUNDS] GO! [CROWDS CHEERING] CLARENCE CARTER, JR.: Every summer in Washington DC, boys build their own racing cars and enter them in the local soapbox derby. I entered last year but I didn’t win. So I decided to build a new car and enter again this year. My name is Clarence Carter Jr., but my friends call me “C”. [MUSIC] I came into the lumber yard. I was to find the kind of wood I needed for my floorboard.

01:21 - I wanted it not too heavy, but heavy enough to carry the car. It couldn’t be a real expensive type of wood, because I only had $20 to spend on the whole car. [MUSIC] He suggested a piece of pine. [MUSIC] He showed me the first piece of wood. The grain was a little rough. I decided to turn it down in hopes that I might get a better piece. [MUSIC] He did show me a better piece of wood. [MUSIC] So I got that piece for my floorboard. [SAWING NOISE] A friend of mine named Gregory Wilson entered the race. He didn’t enter last year but he entered this year. [MUSIC] He’s always heckling me. Like most boys I love my mother. I don’t like it when she calls me to do something and I’ve already started on something else.

02:49 - But, uh, she called me for choir rehearsal, so I had to go. [MUSIC] [CHILDREN’S CHOIR SINGING] I don’t sing all that well. Mr Shaw, I guess he thinks that I sing well enough to stay in choir. But sometimes I get bored of choir rehearsal. You sing songs and you sing them over and over again. Every now and then I sneak a look at, uh, the beams in the church and they sort of reminded me of the supports in my racer. Because they curve around the top and then come straight down on the sides. I had to make sure Mr. Shaw wasn’t watching. Yeah, he sees all, he gets real mad when we don’t sing like we’re supposed to be singing. He raises his voice, then yells. Frankly I don’t like it. I like to get out of the choir rehearsal. I had trouble with the steering mechanism. I couldn’t figure out which way to wind the wire around the steering shaft so the car would turn the same way that I turned the wheel.

04:02 - You have to figure out this by trial and error method. [MUSIC] My father, he’s a chemist and he works over at Howard University. He uses that method. I’ve thought about working as a chemist when I grow up. It seems strange to me how that you can take two things and put ‘em together and come out with something completely different from what you originally had. Such as, uh, common table salt. You put sodium, which can be a very dangerous chemical, and chlorine, which is a poisonous gas, and you put those two together and you come out with regular table salt. And I like this kind of work.

04:44 - When I go into the service I have planned to become a paratrooper. I’ve always wondered how it would feel just falling through space. Actually never even been up in an airplane yet. Because of my height, the brakes have to be made a certain way. When I get in I have to have room to stretch my legs. [MUSIC] Time of inspection is drawing closer. [MUSIC] I was excited about finishing the car, knowing that I designed the car and built it. Gives you some feeling of pride. The year before when I went up for inspection, I had trouble. Various things that were wrong, and inspectors checked the car. They sent me back and I had to make corrections on it.

06:02 - [MUSIC] The inspection was held in a high school gymnasium. So it was cars had, uh, pretty good designs and the competition would be pretty stiff. The inspector seemed like he was giving ‘em a good goin’ over. Some cars didn’t pass, they had to be taken back and worked on. [MUSIC] I wondered how tough they would be on me. [MUSIC] I didn’t know for sure if I was gonna pass. [MUSIC] Well, here goes. [MUSIC] That steering mechanism, I’d had trouble with it before. The steering system it seemed to be a little bit loose. [MUSIC] He let that go. He wanted me to test out my brakes. I mashed on the brakes. [MUSIC] Well, I finally passed. The day before the race I decided to go down to the track, see how it was laid out. It was haunting. Just like it was the day that I raced the year before. The track didn’t seem as long this year.

07:46 - Stands quiet, and tomorrow they’d be filled with people. Cheering and yelling, and cars would be at the top of the hill. If I won the national race, I get a $7,500 scholarship–any college that I want to go to. If I would be the one to win. [BAND PLAYING] Two-hundred or more boys entered the race. They come from all over Washington, nearby Maryland, Virginia.

08:31 - [BAND MUSIC] The soapbox derby officials keep the cars at Coolidge High School gymnasium so the cars can’t be altered, and then they deliver all the cars in a truck. When they take your car off, you’re worried about them being careful with your car. You don’t want them to damage the steering system or the brakes. The other boys had some pretty good racers, they look like they’d be pretty fast. I had to prop up my car so that the wheels wouldn’t get flat. I got real tense when they started lining up the cars. I wasn’t in the first race, Greg was in the first. Attorney General Kennedy started the race. [SPECTATOR SOUNDS] [MUSIC] [SPECTATOR SOUNDS] They race in the system of heats, and the winner from each heat of three cars comes back and races again. STARTER: One, two, three. [CARS RELEASE] [MUSIC] [SPECTATOR SOUNDS] Okay, um… One, two, three.

09:48 - [CARS RELEASE] [CARS RELEASE] [SPECTATORS WHISTLE] [MUSIC] CLARENCE: I don’t know about the other guys, but when I get on the ramp I’m no longer nervous because I’m too busy concentrating on other things, like getting ready to steer my car and getting in a good position- STARTER: One, two, three! CLARENCE: -so that I can get good speed outta the car. When you’re going down the hill 35 or 40 miles an hour and the wind’s blowing in your face, hearin’ people cheering, and trying to stay down low in the car and steer it straight so that you get maximum speed. It’s an exciting feeling. As we got to the bottom of the hill, my car outweighed the car on my right and so he edged past me at the end of the race. I finished in third place, my time was 30 seconds and last year’s race was about 31 or 32 seconds. I did better this year. I talked with the guy I raced against, he’s the one that came in second. ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen. The new Washington D.C. Soapbox Derby Champion: Eric Vogrim.

11:06 - [CROWDS CHEERING] I wished I coulda had the trophy. He had the better car, and he won. So I congratulated him. I wasn’t happy about losing, but, um, I have some plans for next year, changing design, practice on my driving more. I’ll enter again next year. Maybe I’ll win. [MUSIC] .