There are a handful of things you can reasonably expect to never see in your lifetime, like, say, an edible bust of the Ayatollah Khomeini crafted out of matzo, an army of mini–Ernest Borgnines invading Washington, D.C., on horseback or a 7-foot cheese puff hopped up on taurine and hurtling through Forest Park in a soapbox cart designed to look like a bag of puffs. But then the gods of odd intervene, and although shrinking and cloning E.Borg may be of the question, they decide to make that last scenario a reality: For better or worse, St. Louis’ crown jewel of bike trails and summer theater will host the first Red Bull Soap Box Race in the U.S. on October 28.
In case you’re not familiar with the parade of crazy that typically shows up for the energy drink’s other major outdoor event, Flugtag, here are the CliffsNotes: people dressed in chicken suits, jumping off what amounts to an industrial-strength high dive in rickety homemade gliding contraptions and eventually plummeting into the open water below. Flight distance is a criterion for crowning a victor, sure, but equal importance is placed on the show. The Soap Box Race follows the Flugtag formula of equal parts spectacle and skill. The contestants will no doubt stay drier, but if you think they’ll be any saner than the airborn Flugtagers, spend some time getting to know the contestants.
Some things—like the idea that an oversized speedfreak cheese puff might literally be made of some genetically altered mixture of enriched corn meal, vegetable oil and growth hormone—are too good to be true. Once you meet Scott Neale (the man inside the towering suit of Cheddar-colored foam), though, you’re willing to accept him as a second choice. He’s exactly the kind of free spirit Red Bull was destined to attract to its first soap box race on American soil. With his red hair and 6-foot-6 tubular frame, he’s already a Cheeto with legs, and he’s just off-kilter enough to insist that the costume has a persona all its own—not to mention film a series of no-budget movies about the character. (Think grainy video of the anthropomorphized puff chasing a faux documentary crew through Laumeier Sculpture Park and you get the idea.)
“We can’t not win,” he says of the downhill dash that starts at the Muny’s upper parking lot and ends at Pagoda Circle. “The cheese puffs consider themselves an elite race, and they just know where competition is. It’s a sixth sense.”
That may be, but given the size and scope of the competition, Neale and his four-puff pit crew—his fiancée, brother, sister-in-law and niece, in their own custom “cheese” suits—will probably need more than baked-in competitiveness to win the $7,500 prize. The 30-cart race—finally on American soil after previous runs in places like Ireland and Germany—will include equally eccentric teams from across the country and as far away as California and Oregon.
“I haven’t even thought about who we’re up against,” says another local racer, Tim Dorn. “We’re not MIT graduates, but we’ve got some pretty good resources.” And by “good,” he means “capable of simultaneously soaking and bringing significant auditory pain to the competition.” Not only is the City of Clayton firefighter considering equipping his team’s fire engine–inspired cart with a pressurized water extinguisher, he’s recruiting some bagpipe-playing friends to lend a little sideline aural support. “If I ask them to be there to blow us on, they’ll do it,” says Dorn, known to his buddies as T-Mike. “You could see kilts and stockings.”
But what about a bleeting rendition of “Eye of the Tiger”?
“You never know where we might go with this,” he says. Forest Park manager Annabeth Weil just giggles when asked whether the park is ready for the caffeine-fueled mania that’s set to descend on its grounds, but if her knowledge of the drink is any indication, the park is in for a wild ride. “I’ve never had it,” she says. “Is it a beer?” —Matthew Halverson
