GETTING DOWN AND DERBY.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

JUNCTION CITY - Zoom, zoom, zoom.

Michael Nash, 11, will draw on the experience of two siblings and four generations when he represents Oregon in the Soap Box Derby World Championships in Akron, Ohio, at the end of the month.

This isn't the Pine Wood Derby, where kids race 8-inch model cars, his father, Mark Nash, hastens to point out.

This is the Soap Box Derby, where they actually climb into and drive their gravity-propelled vehicles. The kid-built cars may not attain the dazzling speed of the Mazda commercials, but they do reach speeds of up to 30 mph.

And there's plenty at stake in the World Championships.

"There's college money, a trophy, and then you get the pride - your car goes into the Soap Box Derby Hall of Fame," Michael said. "But I don't really care about winning. You get to meet a lot of different people, and it's just fun going down the hill."

Mark Nash is glad his son doesn't have his heart set on victory. He's well aware of the stiff competition at that level. The computer network engineer represented Orange County, Calif., in the 1979 Soap Box Derby World Championships.

"You get this whole week of anticipation," he recalled. "This is a really big deal in Akron, complete with a police escort through town and a chance to meet celebrities - I met Joe Namath and George Takei, Mr. Sulu from 'Star Trek.' When it was finally time to race, I lost my first one. It was all over in 20 seconds."

Still, he remembered the experience so fondly that he jumped at the chance to involve his children in Soap Box Derby, even though that meant driving them to Salem's Bush Park, the nearest venue.

The derby was already something of a family tradition, after all.

Mark Nash had been introduced to the car-building and racing competitions by his father, who'd raced in the late 1950s. And he'd been introduced to the races by an uncle, who competed in the 1940s when Soap Box Derby first started.

The basic premise of the races remains the same now as then: The youthful competitors must be involved in the construction of their own cars. In Michael's "stock car" division, open to racers as old as 16, racers can spend no more than $300 on the vehicles. Actual soap boxes, of course, are long gone: While wood is still used for the car's floor, the sides and top are made of molded plastic.

On race days, their cars are placed, two at a time, behind a gate at the top of a 600-foot hill. With the pull of a lever, the gate falls and the racers steer their gravity-driven cars toward the finish line.

Today, however, an electric eye measures their time differential to the thousandth of a second.

The racers then take their cars back to the top of the hill, switch lanes and wheels and run the course again. The racer with the lowest total differential is the winner.

Michael's older brother, Stephen, was the first member of the latest Nash generation to compete.

"I was the guinea pig," said Stephen, now 18. "We didn't really know how to build the cars."

"He lost - a lot," his father said with a grin.

But, in studying the aerodynamics of racer design, he gained a career interest: When the family travels to Akron for Michael's race on July 31, the road trip will include a detour to drop off Stephen at the University of Illinois, where he will study aerospace engineering.

Sister Katie, 15, is also a Soap Box racer, finishing second at Salem last year. She will go to Akron as her little brother's self-appointed "tucker." At 4-foot-11 inches, her brother has grown so much this year that he has trouble tucking himself down inside his Derby car.

"I'll say, `OK- inhale!' and then push with all my body weight to make sure he's shoved way down in there," she said.

The family attributes Michael's success to his Zen-like approach to racing. Subscribing to the "straight line as shortest distance between two points" theory, many Soap Box racers attempt to rigidly steer their cars on a linear trajectory.

"They feel that, the more you swerve, the more time you take to reach the finish line," Mark said.

"But Michael is kind of squirrelly when he races," Stephen said.

"I just let the car take me where it wants to go down the hill," Michael said with a shrug.

CONTACTS

World Championships:

www.aasbd.org

Nearest chapter:

www.salemsbd.org

CAPTION(S):

All tucked in, Michael Nash, 11, races one of his family's prototype Soap Box Derby cars down the street in front of their Junction City home. Father Mark Nash (from left), brother Stephen and sister Katie help Michael prepare his car for the Soap Box Derby World Championships.