It’s All Downhill From Here

Organizers called their event a soapbox derby, but the Saturday competition on an Irvine hill was anything but child’s play.

There were no plywood vehicles, no kiddie drivers.

Instead, sleek, low-slung racers designed and driven by adults -- among them employees of Bentley, General Motors, Nissan and Porsche -- competed in a gravity-powered, half-mile race down Shady Canyon Drive.

The Extreme Gravity Racing Series looked like a big-time motor racing event without the motors. Drivers, who trained for months, each came with a pit crew of nine. Their carbon fiber-and-aluminum racers cost $20,000 to $100,000 to build, organizers said. The 29 teams from throughout the state were sponsored by automotive companies and others.

“Wow!” said Austin Whitman, 10, as he watched a racer coast down the hill.

“That’s not like the ones we ride in the Boy Scouts.”

Christopher Grant, 8, of Aliso Viejo, who was equally excited, said he hoped to race one day: “That would be awesome. It would be like a rollercoaster.”

The vehicles were no more than 9 feet long by 4 feet wide and weighed less than 100 pounds. Drivers traveling about 50 mph were timed on the half-mile course.

Don MacAllister of Irvine said he began the racing series in Aliso Viejo in 2000 to raise funds for a jobs program for foster kids.

Since then, the event has grown into his full-time business. He said he has run nearly a dozen such events in the last five years.

Automotive companies, which enter the race for free, must donate their racers after the event. Other teams, which pay $30,000 to enter, are provided by MacAllister with one of the donated vehicles painted to the team’s specifications. He also provides training and accommodations.

Saturday’s event drew about 500 participants and 100 spectators.

Duane Smith, 29, of El Segundo was the driver for his team, sponsored by his employer, California Career School. Smith is a truck driving instructor for the Anaheim-based school.

The race, he said, reminded him of a soapbox racer his father, a drag racer, built for him when he was 11.

“It makes you feel like a boy again,” Smith said. “I’m a drag racer myself and I feel more of the car doing this.

“You get more excitement than with a motor.”