When Lee Grove and his friends broke out the paint cans, sheets of insulation and a small wooden go-cart base, neighbors wondered why a giant fish was taking shape in his Arvada home’s driveway.
“They thought, you’re too old to be in a soapbox race,” Grove said.
Grove may be an adult, but he and his crew aren’t too old at heart to participate in the Red Bull Soapbox Race that will swing into town Oct. 25. The team will navigate a winding course in Red Rocks Park alongside 45 other teams from around the country for a chance to win a trip to Texas Motor Speedway for a NASCAR event.
The Flyin’ Fish will race a giant rainbow trout-shaped craft as a tribute to their love of fishing. The team, including Grove’s longtime friends Art Scriven, Bobby Cook, Krys Elbaum and Mike Keiter, has been building and tweaking the craft since August.
“Art and I are really into fishing, so we came up with the design,” Grove said as he and his teammates surveyed the half-painted fish car complete with a gaping mouth that would soon be filled with jagged Red Bull can teeth.
“We’re more into the racing, so the rest of us make it go fast,” Cook laughed.
The Flyin’ Fish aren’t new to soapbox racing. Some of the team members spend their free time on the racetrack racing real cars, so when the first Soapbox Race visited Denver in 2002, the team pulled together their love of fishing and their racing knowledge to finish in second place.
This year, their eyes are on the grand prize.
“This has always been fun, and the first race we had a blast. The cart was … just sitting in the shed, so we thought, let’s get it back together,” Grove said.
The team has done some preliminary runs to clock their time, waiting until it gets dark to zoom the human-powered car down neighborhood hills.
“We’re just seeing what kind of speed we can get,” Keiter said.
After a few wrecks, re-adjustments and final touches of paint, the team will be ready to navigate the quarter-mile race route. The Flyin’ Fish know the event takes place at Red Rocks Park, but the actual course is kept a secret until the day of the race to keep competitors guessing.
The secret race route also levels the playing field so no car has too much of an advantage.
“ Some other teams are building pretty professional-looking crafts, and ours is pretty old school,” Grove said.
The team’s design has improved since the 2002 race, where Grove’s body stuck out of the craft as he steered through the course. This year, the team worked to streamline the fish shape so only Grove’s head sticks out. To complete the look, he will wear a dorsal fin hat.
Style is a big part of the race, so teams won’t win the grand prize by speed alone. The Flyin’ Fish hope to snag extra points for the car’s creativity and the craziness of their required pre-race skit. The team is staying mum on their secret skit, but out-there costumes are definitely involved.
The team and their 44 competitors should have quite an audience for their fishy spectacle. The Cincinnati race Oct. 4 drew nearly 30,000 spectators, according to the race Web site.
“We’re just going to have a good time,” Cook said.
Race day details
The Red Bull Soapbox Race will be noon Saturday, Oct. 25 along Trading Post Road in Red Rocks Park. Admission is free. For more information, or to see what teams will be competing on race day, visit www.redbullsoapboxusa.com.