A team of enthusiasts from the bustling town of Castle Douglas in Dumfries and Galloway, Southwest Scotland are hatching a plan to get a ‘Red Bull Style‘ Soap Box Derby off the starting line on the towns high street in 2019.
It is hoped by the orgainisers that the event will be part of next year’s Castle Douglas Civic week, helping raise funds and bringing visitors to the town. There used to be a civic week bogie race every year in the town, but the event had to close due to health and safety reasons.
The team behind the idea are Matt Mckerlie, Ross Graham, Callum McQueen, Stuart Wallace and Adam Blaikie. They have launched a facebook page where people can keep up to date with progress, you can follow the page by clicking HERE
Matt Mckerlie from Castle Douglas is an ex soldier who now works as an Openreach engineer told DGWGO in a recent interview ” This all started from a Sunday morning spent watching the Red Bull soap box Derby on TV, I thought with King Street in Castle Douglas being a prefect gradient why not run our own. So with a Facebook status up date and few shares later we are now at a stage of trying to work out the logistics of it all.”
Matt Continued “We want to run an event run by the community for the community and in doing so raise money for the civic week fund and castle Douglas development forum.”
We asked Matt how progress was going with organising the event? Matt said “The next stage is speaking to the relevant authorities and people in the know. The five of us have now formed our own official committee. This event is going to require a lot of funding and help from the community to make it a success , some thing we are sure it will be if we manage to pull it off.
We have already had a lot of help offered from local businesses and will be looking for sponsors and fund raising options. The Castle Douglas civic committee have details for policing and road closure to be discussed at a meeting we are having with them soon. The Major cost for this event will be safety barriers as there might need a double layer, one for pedestrians and one incase of any slight detours from the race track.”
If the event goes ahead there will be some fantastic opportunities for anyone interested in engineering, construction, vehicles, sport , cycling and motorsport to join in and take part.
Matt Said “So far have nearly 100 people or teams wanting to race, hopefully with their support we will get the go ahead for the event. More details will follow in due course as we look into everything in more detail.”
What do you think? Would it be good for the town? Would you like to take part and get involved? Have your say HERE
