Xtreme Gravity Racing: Soapbox Derby meets Formula 1

"Overall, we loved the event. It was a fun day of racing and seeing the expressions on the faces of the children during the race made the whole effort worthwhile," says Taylor.

Last year's Volvo entry took the grand prize for design. There was no repeat in 2005. "The art design teachers at the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Pasadena thought we had an excellent design this year," says Lundin. However, Nissan took the design honour. And, in addition to Volvo's top speed award, Audi and Bentley took first place in the Best Innovation category, and Chrysler was awarded Individual Race Champion.

Irvine Time

1 Audi 42.46 2 VW 42.59 3 Nissan 42.60 4 Volvo 42.69 5 GM 42.94 6 Chrysler 43.55 7 Mazda 44.13 8 Bentley 45.55 Fastest Speed – Nissan 52.38 mph

Combined Times 1 Nissan 77.18 2 Volvo 77.47 3 Chrysler 77.79 4 Mazda 79.58 5 VW 79.68 6 GM 80.13 7 Bentley 80.86 8 Audi 80.97

The Irvine course was quite different with one right hander, one left hander and then a straightway, so it suited different cars and each course gave a quite different set of results and aggregate times yielded the most consistent car, being the Nissan, by a narrow margin over the Volvo which was looking for back-to-back wins to follow its 2004 triumph.

The ever-optimistic MacAllister intends to run the principal 2006 event at Tuna Canyon Hill in Malibu on July 29, 2006, though plans for the next series are still in the formative stages. MacAllister is looking to find a home for the series with a broadcast network for next year and to significantly increase the number of corporate competitors.

“The most important thing this year was the impetus continued to increase with the design series and the corporate series was successfully launched with six teams purchasing their own Pininfarina corporate racer and package and that began to pay the bills and make the concept work,” he said.

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