Allan Appel Photo
Christina Mullally helped build her daughter Lauren’s car with “wood, wheels, and sweat.”
With that exciting call, 27 young racers such as 10-year-old Lauren Mullally strapped on gloves and helmets and took to their handmade all-gravity-powered vehicles.
After all the heats and brackets concluded, one of the drivers opened up her back seat and, presto, she and her family served Italian ices out of a cooler to all the fans.
The occasion: the second annual Soap Box Derby at Nathan Hale School in Morris Cove.
The derby drew more than 100 fans on a picture-perfect, bright Saturday afternoon. They lined up along the parking lot with its curving decline behind the school that parents with cones and hay bales had turned into a track.
There, amid applause, cheers, and clicking cameras, they watched the Nathan Hale kids, two at a time, ranging in age from 5 to 11, race 200 feet in approximately 10 to 13 seconds.
If you won your first heat, as did reigning champion Zach Pelletier in his car #12, you raced in other heats. Each kid raced in at least two heats in a round-robin competition until a winner and two runner-ups emerged. (You can find out who got the laurels at the end of this article.)
Defending champ Zach Pelletier with his principal rival.
The winner then got to race Nathan Hale Principal Lucia Paolella. “You get bragging rights to beat the principal,” said Paolella. Paolella’s car, built by her husband last year for the inaugural derby, is named “Hale on Wheels.”
Event organizer John Cirello called each heat dispassionately. He announced that Marcella Corrola, #24 in the baby blue-colored ice cream cart, was racing against Alex Arpino, #16, wearing the spectacularly spiked helmet,. “I’m not saying who to cheer for,” Cirello said. Then he added that the Corolla family would provide everyone with Italian ices after the competition.
Marchella Corolla (right) in a close race in her ice cream cart.
Before the race the contestants paced nervously about. Marcella carefully inspected the cooler behind her seat. She was diplomatic in answering a reporter’s question on the state of her nerves. “I don’t care if I win [or lose],” she said. “I still get to give everybody ice cream.”
She did win her first heat, as did Zach Pelletier in his #12 car. That took a touch of the pressure off the reigning champ. “There’s a whole lot of competition,” he said with a glance toward the principal.
To what did he attribute the speed of his #12? Zach said his dad, Charles Pelletier, lowered the front of the car this year from last year’s design. More aerodynamic.
That meant he had headwinds to contend with, he added. Then he headed off to roll his car up the hill to the staging area for the next round of races.
Anthony “Bad to the Bone” Corolla tipped over at the turn, but his helmet protected him and he walked off toward the second heat, to applause.
Marcella’s brother Anthony didn’t fare as well. As he took the last and only turn where the track curves by a buffer of a dozen hay bales, his vehicle wobbled, then lifted two wheels off the ground. Over Anthony went. Fortunately he was wearing a helmet and traveling perhaps two miles an hour when the tip-over occurred. Parents flocked over. There was no injury. Just some tears.
Wearing a helmet is one of the four requirements in the rules laid down by Cirello, by profession a lawyer practicing in downtown New Haven. Also required: The car must have a steering system, a working brake, and seat belt.
Anthony’s tip-over was perhaps not a compliment to the quality of the trash at the East Haven transfer station. That’s where all of the parts for his car came from. They included a wooden ladder for the chassis, a barrel, PVC tubing, and a skate board on the front. The only items not recycled were nuts and bolts.
A.J. Cirello in his all-wood vehicle prevailed over Sean Kelleher in the first heat.
Cirello said he got the idea for the event, a tame and young-driver adaptation of the national All American Soap Box Derby, from reading the The Dangerous Book for Boys with his son, A.J. A.J. did his dad proud by winning his first heat.
Principal Paolella characterized the event as not only fun and a community-builder, but also a way for a lot more dads to get involved in the life of the school. She added that moms like Christina Mullally and many others had also built the cars. Mullally handled the high-pressure job of waving the green flag to start each heat.
And now in the winners circle: Brother and sister Stan and Alex Rakov took first and second place respectively; C.J. Cicarella placed third. Stan Rakov’s Car 54 prevailed over Hale on Wheels. “The principal lost,” John Cirello reported. ” And it wasn’t even close.”