All Fun, No Brakes: Time Attack Racing Holds Its Own at Red Bull Soapbox Race
DU’s student racing club took a detour from its goal of racing at Pikes Peak to tackle one of Red Bull’s wackiest events.
Fast, fun, and unpredictable, the Red Bull Soapbox Race returned to Denver this year for the first time since 2008. Thousands of racing (and Red Bull) fans gathered in the parking lot of Empower Field on June 13 to watch teams compete in the wildest soapbox cars imaginable. Among them: a cart shaped like a lobster, a cardboard Zamboni, a rolling hospital bed, and a boxy, miniature “Mercedes” rolling down the course trunk-first.
The team behind the mini-Mercedes—DU’s Time Attack Racing Club—was one of 44 competitors from around the country. Club President Remington Stagg, a third-year mechanical engineering student, said they couldn’t wait to sign up when they heard Red Bull was coming to town.
“We’re still not that well known around campus and the Denver community,” Stagg explained. “So, we hope that this soapbox race is a way for us to get our name out there.”
Time Attack Racing’s soapbox car was inspired by the real Mercedes 190 students are building to race in the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb next year. The backwards soapbox version consisted of a steel go-kart chassis surrounded by walls of painted foam. Zane Shami (pictured above at left), a third-year mechanical engineering student who leads Time Attack Racing’s aerodynamics team, said they named it the Replay Racer for its trunk-first design.
“When you play [a video of our run] in reverse, it’ll look like we’re climbing up a hill, like we will in the Pikes Peak race,” he said with a smile.
The rules of the Red Bull Soapbox Race are simple: Teams build the most ridiculous carts they can think of and barrel down a track littered with jumps and obstacles. All vehicles must be powered by humans or gravity—no engines allowed—and weigh 175 pounds or less. Whoever gets to the finish line fastest has a chance at winning, but teams are also judged on their creativity and showmanship. The judges for the Denver race included Broncos offensive lineman Quinn Meinerz, Olympic freeskier Bobby Brown, and Red Bull aerialist Amy Chmelecki, who arrived at the event via a powered paraglider.
When building their soapbox, Shami said the most difficult part was planning for the course itself. Unlike the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, which uses the same course every year and doesn’t toss random obstacles into the road, the Red Bull Soapbox Race could include anything—and Red Bull intentionally kept teams in the dark until the night before the race. Shami said the only hint they received was that the course would start with a large drop, rather than a traditional push start over the starting line.
“[That led us to think] the course was going to be more about sharp turns at high speeds than obstacles,” said Shami. “So, we prepared for that.”
It was a smart bet: The resulting course included a 30-foot drop—the largest in Red Bull Soapbox history—a second 22-foot drop, and multiple turns where soapboxes could spin out of control. More than one driver crashed at the “berm,” a steep, slanted turn at the fastest part of the course, while others hit the brakes too hard and ran out of momentum to reach the finish line. The Replay Racer glided with ease, however, and even managed to survive a last-minute jump designed to shake up drivers before the finish line.
“We lowered the pressure in our tires, so we didn’t bounce around as much,” said Shami. “It slowed us down a bit, but a slower car is better than a crashed car.”
The Replay Racer crossed the finish line in just 22.89 seconds. It wasn’t enough to reach the podium—the day’s fastest run took only 20.79 seconds—but Time Attack Racing still received a strong average score of 9 (out of 10) for their performance. Each team was also tasked with performing a skit before their run, and the judges appeared to enjoy Time Attack Racing’s dance to “Replay” by Iyaz.
Win or lose, Shami said students got everything they wanted from the race.
“It started out as a publicity thing and morphed into a good learning experience,” he said.
Next stop: Pikes Peak
For Stagg, the race was an opportunity to train the club’s less experienced members before heading to Pikes Peak next year.
“We knew going into this team that not everyone would have a basic knowledge of motor sports or experience cutting metal. So, we had 10 to 20 people in the garage working on the [soapbox],” said Stagg. “And if we had to scrap $20 worth of metal, it was better than a drastic mistake on our real car.”
The club’s Mercedes 190 is looking more like a real race car every day as students gradually build and secure parts. They checked off some of the biggest items on their to-do list this year, including building a large steel roll cage to protect their driver, alum Matthew Butson (MS ’24). Stagg said they’re beginning to focus more on Pikes Peak itself, and to that end, a few students scoped out this year’s hill climb on June 21 with the help of another DU alum, Craig Lumsden (BSBA ’85). Lumsden has competed at Pikes Peak multiple times and runs a racing team with his son, Zach, called Colorado Motorsport. This year, Zach reached the top in 10:45 with a BMW race car while Time Attack Racing shadowed his pit crew.
“Their team has been so supportive of us,” said Stagg. “We [learned] a lot, and we can’t wait to start working with [Butson], so he is as comfortable as possible next year as well.”
Stagg has high hopes that Time Attack Racing will become the first college team to compete at Pikes Peak on four wheels. Until then, they can relive their soapbox run for motivation.
