We have been hard at work in the Studio so we decided to
take some time and create something fun. A friend of mine informed us that
Denton hosts a Day of the Dead Festival each year. This festival is home to a
soapbox race featuring coffin cars. Having never even been to a soapbox race,
let alone building a soap box racer, we signed up. Over a team meeting, we came
up with Race in Peace (R.I.P.) as our coffin racer’s name. We wanted to do
something different from the competitors so we designed our coffin to be
colorful and groovy. Our creative
process was as follows.
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| Inspiration: We decide on a trike |
Ken built the chassis using a steel frame, which included a
steering wheel. We knew that the coffin car was something that we were going to
want to keep so we weren’t thrilled about the idea of slamming it into a stack
of hay bails to stop the momentum. Ken fabricated a brake system that allowed
me to push on the pedals and it would effectively stop the back two wheels.
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| Completed Chassis |
For the body, we cut the frame of the coffin on the CNC
machine. The total length of the coffin ended up being nine feet long to house
the chassis and allow for more than one driver. Ken hand-shaped a wood fairing
for design and aerodynamics.
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| Coffin racer body |
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| Hand carved fairing |
To execute our vision, we made the decision to paint the
body like an old school red and white VW bus and add some groovy details.
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| Base coat |
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| Finishing touches |
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| Weighing in at 223 lbs. Is there a prize for the heaviest car? |
We had so much fun the day of the festival. We brought our
kids to cheer us on as we competed against 40 other coffin cars. We ended up
placing 10th out of 40. We were very pleased with this considering it was our first attempt at soapbox racing. Here I am ready for race #2.
Thank you to all of our friends and family that came out to help and root us on. See you next year Denton!
