Red Bull Soapbox Race footage courtesy of Red Bull
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00:00 So I'm Charlie this is Lauren we were part of the
00:03 How did you push going background how'd you get into it
00:09 On the race and then applied in 2015
00:20 Okay, so you've won in 22, but you've done it quite a few years. Oh, well, okay
00:30 Obviously this was the most successful was there any other disasters before or
00:57 Yeah, was it one of you driving that yeah a few bruises
01:01 Yeah, I watched this morning there's a few precarious moments where it nearly went wrong
01:13 Yeah, the last jump was quite hairy
01:16 When we were watching it from the top after the performance of the time
01:20 We were just so excited and then watching it back afterwards
01:23 Yeah, so we designed it around about 30 degree landing angle
01:32 And what's gonna watch your what's your background you for jobs you kind of engineers is this cuz say I'm an engineer
01:43 And I'm a doctor
01:45 Yeah, yeah
01:49 Perfect yeah, yeah, so I don't kind of people say you got a little bit crazy to do this type of things. That's true
01:56 I think we always trust Charlie's engineering on it. Yeah
02:10 I
02:12 Didn't concentrate
02:15 We sort of split our team up so there's us two and then two others and Charlie and our team engineering
02:22 So they do a lot of building a third chassis
02:24 And all this lovely would work then myself and Julie we are team aesthetic. So we do the painting and the design and things like that
02:31 And it turns kind of on the day as well watching from the TV from a safe distance
02:36 It was looks quite fun and it was kind of once kind of friendly and together and it was kind of a camaraderie
02:41 Is that the case? What's it like kind of on the day?
02:43 Just before we were called up to the race we're just chatting about
02:59 Vehicle notes. They were missing a box. Sorry nuts on their front wheel. So there was nothing stopping that wheel from coming off
03:06 So yeah, there was a rally round to find some spare bits
03:09 I couldn't find the right nut because it was a bicycle wheel as opposed to anything else and they ended up just gluing it on
03:15 and
03:17 A competition but actually the atmosphere in the pit is really nice and everyone wants
03:26 Everyone to get down and everyone so wants to get down there. So it's a great community
03:31 Even online it's great community as well
03:33 They're already talking about what they're doing for this
03:37 It's a right I said you're not not competing this year no this year no, we thought we'd take a year out
03:44 Yeah, it's what would you say to anyone that's kind of thinking about it? Maybe look at a jump in
03:49 Yeah, just do it. It's the first time we did it. I didn't know how to weld. We didn't really know what we were doing
03:55 We just had a game
03:57 And yeah we were hooked
03:59 So yeah, give it a go if you fancy
04:01 Obviously like you've seen
04:05 Charlie's like workshop and everything but you don't need it's only a small sort of shed really you don't need like loads of
04:13 pit and
04:16 Caboodle and things some people have huge garages. They make them in but you know, we made it in the back
04:43 So what made you your winning event winning cars a kind of a police
04:47 Police car gave you that idea
04:49 Gadgets car
04:52 Trying to do is work out a
04:54 Vehicle that we could build that was going to be not simple but relatively straightforward
04:59 Because we learnt our lessons from the Shaguar with compound kerbs that was out
05:04 So it had to be quite plain up
05:06 So yeah we were looking at sort of
05:08 Just common vehicles that we liked
05:10 And this one came out top
05:12 And also we could have wings
05:14 We really wanted to have wings
05:16 Because Red Bull gives you wings
05:18 And we also when we'd done it before I think
05:22 Ignoring the Shaguar
05:24 We always sort of like concentrate a lot on like the chassis and the engineering
05:28 And sort of
05:30 Because you have to do like a little performance at the top
05:32 We tended to
05:34 Kind of forget a little bit about that
05:36 And do that on the day
05:38 So we were thinking okay inspect a gadget
05:40 There's good characters
05:42 Maybe we can do something a bit more
05:44 At the top so
05:46 Spent a bit of time building some props as well
05:48 So yeah
05:50 We had a safe and some sticks of TNT
05:52 So what was the speed you got up to?
05:56 What was the kind of top speed?
05:58 35
06:00 Just before the last jump
06:02 I guess the aim of the game is to get out as quick as possible
06:04 Presumably right?
06:06 Yeah so the scoring is on three criteria
06:08 So speed is one of them
06:10 That's the one you can focus on
06:12 And then there are two others
06:14 One is the performance at the top
06:16 So that's done by a judge
06:18 So you get a score out of 10
06:20 And then the third one is creativity
06:22 So that's again before the race
06:24 The judges come round and have a look at the vehicles
06:26 And you can be talking through it
06:28 What did you build? What did you buy in?
06:30 What's the design? Why is it different from everybody else's?
06:32 And those three combined
06:34 To give you a final score
06:36 Perfect
06:38 I think it's better to say
06:40 I watched you going down for your winning attempt
06:42 This morning
06:44 Did you enjoy it?
06:46 It looked pretty scary
06:48 It looked like it was a full on concentration moment
06:50 Yeah so it was
06:52 It didn't go quite to plan
06:54 So the idea was
06:56 We'd get down all the way to the run
06:58 And just before the last jump
07:00 I'd pull a bit of string which would pop the wings out
07:02 Because they were on elastic
07:04 What actually happened was
07:06 We came over the first water jump
07:08 I came off the seat, my feet were back here somewhere
07:10 And then trying to get back into the vehicle
07:12 Whilst it was at about 30 degrees straight down
07:14 I'd already caught the string
07:16 So I didn't realise that they'd gone out
07:18 And as I was going down I was like "are they out?"
07:20 So you see me looking down a lot
07:22 I'm not really where I'm getting
07:24 I was trying to work out what was going on with that
07:26 And then once we hit that last jump
07:28 It was a "do I brake? Do I not brake?"
07:30 I'll just go for it
07:32 See what happens
07:34 I think some of that was our fault
07:36 Because when we've done it before
07:38 We've had just Al push it
07:40 But I think we were so hyped up and so excited
07:42 That Charlie ended up getting a 3 person push
07:44 Down the ramp
07:46 Rather than just one
07:48 It was quite an aggressive start
07:50 If anyone wants to get involved
07:52 How can they do so?
07:54 Just apply for the Red Bull Soapbox Race
07:56 Just pop onto the website, we've got until the end of March
07:58 Put in our application and hopefully you'll get through
08:00 Got three tips for making a soapbox racer
08:02 Start with making it strong
08:04 They take a lot of hits on the way down
08:06 So make sure it can get to the bottom
08:08 Make it fast, this one's made out of BMX wheels
08:10 Make sure it's a theme you enjoy
08:12 Because we spent a couple of months building this
08:14 So you're going to be working on it for quite a while
08:16 Good luck to everyone entering the race
08:18 This reporter's found himself a bargain
08:20 I'll be using a tried and tested vehicle
08:22 As long as they don't catch me
08:24 (laughter)
08:26 (laughter)
08:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]