Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 16, 1995 TAG: 9507170085
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUG DOUGHTY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As she peered over the nose of her soap-box racer Saturday, Julie Thacker faced a 275-foot race with destiny - her father's and her own.
In a story that was both warming and heartwarming on a 97-degree afternoon, Thacker won the super-stock division of the Commonwealth Games Soap Box Derby on her seventh try.
In the process, Thacker qualified for the All-American Soap Box Derby in Akron, Ohio, where her father represented Roanoke 32 years ago.
``I'm still shaking,'' said Jim Thacker, moments after 15-year-old Julie had overcome a narrow differential from the first heat to eliminate 13-year-old Matt Waldron. ``Her mother was crying, I was trembling and Julie was cool as a cucumber.''
Julie Thacker had finished second either three or four times - nobody was sure - and had decided she would not race next year in her final year of eligibility. She received her learner's permit to drive a street car Tuesday.
``With that she lost all interest in gravity racing,'' said her father, only partly in jest. ``I've sensed her enthusiasm waning a little bit over the years. It definitely has now.''
But not enough to prevent Julie and her mother, Anne, from assembling a ``kit car'' in the living room of their Roanoke County home.
``They asked me to go ride my motorcyle,'' said Jim Thacker, who, in all fairness, has built a few racers over the years.
``I never pushed her to compete. There were times when I pushed her to work on the car. I can remember one year when she was 8 or 9 years old and had a Barbie doll in one hand and a blanket in the other.''
The trip to Akron won't be the first for Julie Thacker, who has seen the race a few times in the company of her father, a regional director.
``It will be a little different this time,'' she said. ``I always wanted to race there.''
One way or another, the super-stock title was going to have a family angle Saturday. Waldron's uncle, Rod, and an older brother, Del, have made trips to Akron as winners of the Roanoke Area Soap Box Derby.
The Roanoke event, embraced by the Commonwealth Games in 1990, has been held 45 times at various locations since 1936.
Don Poage, in town for his 50th Jefferson High School reunion, made an unannounced appearance before the finals Saturday at Walrond Park. He won the Roanoke Soap Box Derby in 1946, when it was held on Richelieu Avenue in South Roanoke.
``They called it the greatest amateur athletic event in the world,'' Poage said. ``And it's meant more to me in my lifetime than I could ever say. People were talking about it at the reunion.''
The race moved to the Salem Turnpike in 1952 and to the old Starkey Dragstrip, off Buck Mountain Road, in 1958. A cheating scandal at the national level caused an interruption in the local derby from 1972-80, when it resumed on Washington Avenue in Vinton.
The derby returned to Buck Mountain Road in 1981, where it remained until Roanoke County issued a permit to have a new track built in 1992. Donations paid for all but $246 of the total expense of $110,000.
Not long ago, the Roanoke Area Soap Box Derby was the only event of its kind in the state. In recent years, races have been started in Waynesboro, Lynchburg and Richmond, which is why all 26 entrants Saturday were from Roanoke.
``We're a sanctioned event,'' Thacker said. ``We pay $1,200 for the right to stand out in the sun and do this. We have to play by their rules and the [Commonwealth] Games have no problem with that. We're not supposed to infringe on another area.''
The event relies heavily on volunteers, such as coordinator and longtime starter Doug Trout, who left home at 3 a.m. Tuesday and drove to Akron, returning to Roanoke at 7 p.m. with five racer kits.
Trout's stepdaughter, Angela Pritchard, won the Roanoke Area Soap Box Derby in 1991 and Saturday joined with Larry Hale to win the dual-control division. Del Waldron and Justin Crandell finished second in that class, in which the past champions assisted handicapped children.
Mischelle Cook, who moved to Roanoke last year, defeated Buddy Widener in the stock division and will join Julie Thacker at the All-American Soap Box Derby, which was not open to girls until 1976.
``There was a time when I didn't think girls should race in Akron,'' Jim Thacker said, ``but then Julie came along and I had a change in philosophy.''
Memo: ***CORRECTION***