Lotus To Dominate Soapbox Racing
Yes, you read that right. The same company that builds the oft-touted Elise and Exige road- and track-going four-wheeled weapons is going after an entirely new kind of challenge; soapbox racing. Generally considered a field dominated by children in homemade gravity-fueled contraptions, Lotus’ streamlined 119c soapbox car is unlike any other we’ve seen.
Constructed from carbon fibre and designed in a wind tunnel, the 119c is vastly more advanced than the car you and your dad built out of spare lumber. Already a record holder, the diminutive monocoque takes Lotus’ longtime motto of “performance through light weight” to a completely new level. Successor to the original “Roadster” Lotus soapbox car, the enclosed 119c uses such technology as movable tungsten ballast and small 20-inch wheels mounted on ultra-low friction bearings to gain a competitive edge over it’s competitors from the likes of Lola, Ford, and various academic institutions.
Having already proved itself at the 2004 Goodwood Festival of Speed’s soapbox derby, the 119c has established itself as the “car” to beat. At that race, 24-year old Paul Adams absolutely demolished the competition, besting the previous track record (set by none other than fellow supercar builder McLaren) by over a second and besting all comers in that particular event by nearly eight full seconds.
But that race is no more; Goodwood’s Festival of Speed has apparently become too mainstream to play host to such an event, choosing rather to appease the crowds’ need for speed by exhibiting even more powered cars. Thus, the little gravity racer from Hethel has had to look elsewhere for competition, and is set to make its second competitive appearance at the Brooklands Museum Soapbox Derby.
A new event, the Brooklands derby ran its first race last year, and as such Lotus has also looked at entering the Extreme Gravity Racing series in the U.S., but hasn’t laid out any plans to actually enter that series yet. Once again Paul Adams will be piloting the craft after a two-year break from the track. That hasn’t seemed to have shaken his confidence, saying “I am really excited to be able to race at such a historic circuit and be reunited again with past competitors, which will certainly make for some good and fun racing. We will be shaking down the car on the Hethel Test Track, so that I can familiarize myself once again with the controls, oil the nuts and bolts and blow off the cobwebs!”
The Brooklands course will involve having the cars run from the top of the circuit’s test hill, through the exciting banked section before finishing on the aptly named Finish Straight. Currently, the course record is held by Lola, which descended the embankment in 71.8 seconds. Competitors are expected to reach a top speed of 56 kilometers per hour (35 miles per hour).
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