Chi Ming's Blog: The race is on!

The summer is officially over now and with the beginning of autumn/fall, the weather has decided to turn for the worst. However, this did not stop thousands of people, including myself, from attending the first Red Bull Soapbox Race held in Seattle. The Red Bull Soapbox Race is a race with 36 teams of amateurs racing their creatively designed human-powered carts to race against the clock in a downhill sprint to the finish line at the end of the half-mile course. As the race was held at Fremont Avenue, it was quite local to me, but I showed up a bit late so the best places to watch the race and the big screens were already taken. I did find a spot after the finish line, but I decided to fight the crowds and try and get a spot in the middle of the course. Luckily I found one at a tricky part of the course, thus had move opportunities to see some crashes. As it was raining, I was only planning to stay an hour or so, but I enjoyed it so much I stayed for the whole event. My favorite cart was "The Crapster" (yes, it is a large toilet), but unfortunately it did not win. Other interesting carts were the "Rollaroid 600" (a large Polaroid camera which won the "The People's Choice award") and "Rollin Troll of Fremont" (it really does look like the famous Fremont Troll), which came in third. In fact, although the racers came from all over the US, Seattle based teams won all the prizes and no, it was not a fix ;-)

From a photography point of view, one good thing about this event was that it gave me an opportunity to take some photos of moving objects. As you can see from the examples before (there were more blurry ones), I think I still need a lot of practice. For better taken photos of the event, check them out at the official Seattle Red Bull Soapbox Race website.