New racers make good showing

CLOVIS - The Clovis Soap Box Derby was bound to feature some new racers following a one-year hiatus. But Saturday's slow runs down Sycamore Street overwhelmingly went to the newest crop of racers.

Jeremiah Vigil, 14, led a field of first-time racers to claim a berth in the All-American Soap Box Derby. Vigil, who will be an eighth-grader at Marshall Middle School, beat out 16 other racers in the double-elimination format and held off runner-up D.J. Padilla and third-place finisher Jackson Henderson. All three were first-time competitors.

Saturday marked the 19th running of the race created and sponsored by the Clovis Rotary Club, with no race held last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The race is a qualifier for the AASBD, scheduled for July 20-24 in Akron, Ohio.

Vigil said he is excited to go to Akron, though he didn't know much about the event until his uncle, Leroy Cordova, asked if he'd want to take part.

"I said, 'Yeah, that sounds fun,'" Vigil said of the conversation two weeks ago. "'I'll do it.'"

The derby, which began 9 a.m. Saturday and finished just before 1 p.m., featured preliminary races and a bracket competition. Each round between racers consists of two races, with racers switching sides to account for variances in Sycamore Street. The racer with the lowest combined time wins the round.

Vigil said as the event went on, he found small areas on the road to gain advantages. Sycamore Street doesn't have much of a slope, so race organizers compensate by starting racers off from a ramp built specifically for the event.

The Clovis race is open to kids between ages 9 and 18 as of July 1, but most kids end up quitting in their early teens out of interest in other events or they literally outgrow the sport. Racers taller than 5-foot-6 tend to be cramped in the cars, and the driver/car combo cannot exceed 240 pounds.

Winners are disqualified from future Clovis Soap Box Derbies.