The Fourth of July marked another successful year for the annual Soap Box Derby in Conshohocken, writes Rob Zawatski for NewsWorks.

To enter, children from the area build and paint their own cars for a chance to win a spot at the Soap Box Derby World Championship.

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Mark Marine, regional director of the Conshohocken derby, is charged with ensuring that all of the kids stay safe and enjoy their time at the derby.

“We check over the cars, make sure they’re built properly and safely,” said Marine.

However, over the derby’s sixty six years history, the design of the cars has changed. Today, instead of building their cars using a set of blueprints and anything they can get a hold of, most participants purchase a kit that comes with a premade fiberglass body.

When finished, the car looks very similar to an Olympic bobsled, but with wheels.

“It’s just like kind of a stretched-out oval-like piece of wood, and then there’s a shell over top,” said thirteen-year-old veteran racer Emma Manley. “In the middle, there’s just a hole where you slide into and you have to like really really get down into it.”

Read more about Conshohocken’s soap box derby at NewsWorks by clicking here.

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