Soap Box

I love how San Franciscans will tolerate their neighborhoods being used for just about anything... as long as it's fun.

Saturday was another splendid sunny day, perfect for getting into costumes and rolling funny looking cars down steep hills.

Dolores Park, plus three or four blocks of Dolores Street hosted the annual Red Bull Soapbox Race.

I hadn't planned to attend, but it was just so darned nice out, my friends and I walked the ten or so blocks over to the park and spread out a blanket. About a hundred thousand other people had the same idea. Apparently a record turn out for the event. Blame the sun.

From our vantage point, one couldn't see much of the course but Red Bull was nice enough to put up a couple of big screens, so essentially we just watched the event on television while it was going on right over there.

No matter. We had a great time watching team after team, yammer some cockamamie story to the hosts at the top of the hill, then play a musical selection along with some kind of choreographed dance, before jumping into their zany coaches and tossing themselves full speed down the hay bailed boulevard.


The contestants ranged from real life garbage men in their mini garbage truck, to some college math geeks in their Rubik's Cubemobile, to some Trekkies and their rolling Death Star. Contestants were judged not only on speed, but on creativity and excitement

There were some good laughs and wipe outs, but my favorite part of the event was the end.

The race was over, the big screens went black, but someone was nice enough to keep some music playing. This is the part where people would normally pick up their stuff and head to the next stop for the day. But not this time. Most of the crowd stayed right where they were, splayed out on the grass on a beautiful day surrounded by friends and neighbors.

It took a zany, fun event to get us all to the park. But once we were all there, we realized there was no better place to be.

Congratulations to the winning garbage man team.