Almost all sports competitors wrestle at some point with deciding if they should walk away when they are still on top.
For 13-year-old Sheldon Fyten it looks like he will hand his helmet after winning this year’s Rotary Soap Box Derby held earlier this month in Okotoks.
In his fifth derby, Fyten got his hands on the winner’s trophy for crossing the finish line first in a climactic battle of the four fastest competitors on June 4.
The other top qualifiers featured in the race were Michael Moeckl, Cody Cameron and Byron Levesque.
Even though he has one year of eligibility left with the soapbox event, Fyten said it’s doubtful he would be back next year.
“I think I am going to retire,” he said. “I’ll give my cart to my brother.”
With his championship experience fresh in his mind, Fyten is looking to hang up his helmet and pass along this sleek racing vehicle to his younger brother Adam.
This year’s top local racer characterized the cart, put it together with the assistance of his father Rod, as one not built for style but solely for speed.
“It’s a pretty basic flat cart,” Fyten said. “That’s very aerodynamic.”
The veteran soapbox participant admitted his ride wasn’t at its top level of performance for the entire 2011 competition.
He said some modifications were made on the fly the day of the event.
“My first few races were pretty slow,” he recalled. “We discovered I had a problem with a rear wheel. We changed that up and I was going a lot faster.”
A creativity element has always been a prime component of the local soapbox derby.
Competitors who don’t have a cart that moves like greased lightning can still earn some recognition for having a distinctive race day costume or vehicle.
This year’s stand out as most creative cart was a prehistoric themed conveyance driven by 11 year-old Wyatt Robinson.
For the benefit of those not at this year’s Okotoks soapbox event, he described his racing creation as a rolling stone.
“It was like I was riding on a slab of rock,” Robinson said. “The rock was on top of some fur. I had some bones all over it. I had a dinosaur head out the front and I had rib cage around me.”
Robinson said he was dressed appropriately as a caveman on race day and said his cart, assembled over two to three weekends, did get him down the hill repeatedly just not at break neck speeds.
“The wheels would spin just awesome,” he said. “But on the hill it wasn’t very fast or anything like that.”
Unlike Fyten, Robinson is not looking to get out of the heat of soapbox competition anytime soon.
He said he’s looking forward to brainstorming some ideas with his family to come up with another potential award winning cart design for the 2012 event.
