Course Location and Use Guidelines

There are several factors that one must consider in finding the right hills, these factors include; accessibility, length and features, traffic, and home density.

Accessibility

The hills one selects must be accessible. One should not have to traverse over hill and dale to get their car to the top. A good hill is one that you can load your cars in a truck and drive to the top. If it’s a short way to push your car up then perhaps the hill is too short. Having places to legally park your tow vehicle(s) at the top and bottom, will save you from needless trouble later. Also, picking hills that are extremely hard to find may prove difficult for new drivers to join your ranks. As your events grow, you’ll need to think about spectators and their parking. As the need arises, you’ll have to adapt to the situation of increased interest. It may involve some logistics on your part. Keep these factors in mind when looking for your hills.

Length and Features

These two factors are perhaps the most important factors for your race.

You’ll need to have several hills that are different from each other to make things interesting and keep longevity in your races. If you race the same one hill over and over again, people will become bored and your numbers will dwindle. We think that four hills is a good minimum number, more are better of course but no less than four.

These hills will need to have some length to them so you can get a good run in, at least try to have courses a ½ mile long. Shorter hills are too quick, no time to mix it up or really get down, so keep your hills on the long side and you’ll have more fun. Width is also important.

The starting place of your hills should be able to accommodate a minimum of 6-10 cars in a row. The wider the start the better, as a single row is a more fair starting position for everyone than multiple rows.

Your hills should have some steep sections to them so you can get some speed. Hills that are too steep can be dangerous. A super steep section followed by a long flat would be ok, use your best judgment. Most of our hills we have been averaging 25-30 on the slow sections and 40-55 mph on the fast sections.

All of your courses must be able to be started from a cold stop. Pushers or rolling off from your wheels wheelchair style is not permitted. The start of your courses must be steep enough to allow every car to gain speed from a dead stop. This way, it is just car, driver and the road that provide the necessary ingredients for victory. Pushing can give unfair advantage to the guy that has the track star or linebacker for a pusher.

You should have a hill that is a long drag type hill, one with lots of turns, one with bumps or a funnel etc. you get the idea. The reasoning for this is some cars and drivers will excel on certain types of hills where others will do well on others, it gives everyone a chance to shine. Some of our racers will place in the top 3 every time on the long drag courses and place near last on the twisty turny courses, every time. It keeps things interesting.

Courses that have a steep start and then have some turns and then some flats will really change things up as different cars will perform better or worse on each of these sections. The more varied features you have on your courses the more fun and challenging they become.

The end of your track is also important. You don’t want the end of your course to be the busiest 4-lane intersection in town. Courses with plenty of leader at the end are ideal so racers that experience brake failure, loss of conciseness, are overcome with glee, or have a damaged car can roll safely to a stop. An abrupt end to your track can pose problems if racers are concentrating more on dueling each other than the location of the cones. 

Look for features that keep things interesting and interest will be there. Mix things up, keep it fresh and you’ll have more exciting races and bigger turn-outs. If you live in an area that is completely devoid of hills, we recommend using parking structures in the late hours of the night for some fun. Parking structure cars need to be lighter as you may have to carry them up several flights of stairs.

Traffic

Traffic is an issue for sure; this is why we race at 7:00 in the AM. Race times should be early for several reasons, one of them is traffic. Racing soapbox is not an everyday occurrence, unlike people riding a bicycle or skateboard down a hill, a group of soapbox racers rolling down a hill will get a lot of looks. People in cars will gawk, they will stop in the middle of the street, and they will slow down as they crane their necks to see what you are doing. Too many people in cars doing the aforementioned things will invariably lead to accidents. Your races will be shut down if they are deemed an attractive nuisance.

Pick roads that have low traffic. You smacking some SUV with your soapbox car is all kinds of bad, avoid roads that will have cars jumping into the flow of traffic with you, suddenly showing up in front or behind you as they may react poorly to your presence.

Dead end roads are thus the best to race on as they greatly reduce the traffic factor. Cars coming up the hill and doing u-turns in front of you is also a factor.

Home Density

Related to traffic is home density. Racing past a mess of houses can spell disaster as some suburbanite backs his Volvo out into the midst of you - POW! You get the idea. People in cars are looking for people in cars, not soapbox cars. Most soapbox cars are low profile machines, they may be under the average motorists radar. Also people, kids, animals from houses suddenly running out into the street can be a bad thing. Some houses are fine, but as you increase the number of houses you increase the chance that something will happen. All of these things you must keep in mind as you pick your courses.

It is also important to not leave a mess, not do burnouts, or blare loud music at the wee hours of the morning. Doing these things piss the locals off, and you want to race there again don’t you? So it’s best to impact your environment as little as possible. Encounters with irate neighbors and the cops are inevitable.

There are ways to deal with these people. Firstly, the goal is to get your run in. If you see cops, yell “Cops!” everyone gets in their cars and goes. This sort of panic start may not allow you to get a nice start line but if it’s either get a half ass run in or no run at all, I’ll take the run. If the neighbors come out it’s best to ignore them until you get your first run in, then you can try and talk to them. Remember these people are not rational, they are yelling at you in their underwear at 7 in the morning on a Sunday; chances are they cannot be reasoned with. It is best to be nice, explain you’re going to do a couple of runs and go away, you’ll be gone before you know it.

 If you feel that they are just taking out their crappy life on you just get as many runs in as you can and then split. Do not give them flyers or other information that they could use to find you, some people have bad time management skills, they may make disbanding our group a full time hobby.

If the cops come it’s best to be nice and reason with them. We have been firm in our right to run the streets as we’re all consenting and are we really breaking any laws? Most cops don’t know the law for shit and Soapbox is not something that comes into play on the regular so they are generally unprepared to deal with it.

But just to be on the safe side, if the cops do show up, every available video camera should be running and recording the encounter.  This is for OUR protection.  And only the designated Officer of the Day from our group should deal with the cops unless the cops request otherwise.

Maryland Illegal Soapbox Federation & Incline Trials Society