Welton Soapbox Derby 2024

Welton Soapbox Derby 2024

This was our first time attending Welton so did not know what to expect. This was still very much in our test phase for the kart so my main priority was not to crash it and wreck it; I just wanted to get some feedback from the kart from different surfaces and different gradients etc.

We made two modifications and one repair to be race ready for Welton.

The repair was the front right wheel arch having to be stripped and fitted with new Aeroply after I lost steering at Richards Castle and hit a haybale.

The first modification that came as a result of my collision with the haybale was to file down the quick release steering wheel adaptor to ensure my steering wheel stayed completely on the entire time and was not able to be released unless the pin was pressed.

The second modification was also due partly to the crash with the haybale. We ended up chopping the very front section of the body off as we knew this was one of our weak parts and also a common collision area, and replaced it with a front bumper that was fixed onto the steel chassis making it stronger and a lot easier to repair if it got damaged. This also allowed us to fix the towing eye straight through the box section steel meaning there is no chance of it unscrewing itself when I am being towed and there is no pull on the body, potentially damaging it.

We also made two more changes that were not necessary but they helped us massively.

The first modification was by adding a push bar onto the roll bar. Due to it being a push start, we wanted a way to give the pushers an easy and safe place to be able to give me the best push possible ultimately giving me more initial speed.

The final modification we made was by changing the stiffness of the springs as well as position of the springs. We had originally one big ‘Medium’ strength spring above the hub to try and give us movement. We then found out these were too stiff so we changed to a slightly smaller height spring as well as going down to the ‘Lightweight’ stiffness springs. Also, instead of only having one big spring above the hub, we had a medium sized spring above the hub, and a small sized spring below the hub (both ‘Lightweight’ stiffness), on all four hubs. This gave us a more comfortable ride as well as conserving energy, which leads to more speed carried overall.

Overall, I achieved P9/13 in a full adult race with my fastest time being 46.3 seconds. Once again, we were happy with this result as even though we had no silverware, we were able to test the kart in another environment with different modifications and we knew this was the max our kart could do at this time due to many different conditions.

If you wish to see any of my onboard videos they are all uploaded for Welton Soapbox Derby on my Instagram, which can be found by clicking the logo at the bottom of this page or by searching 'aerostreamracing'.

Only the one image from Welton Soapbox Derby as both me and my dad were very busy so not many photo opportunities.