Yesterday I went to a soapbox derby in Turners Falls, MA. It was called the Montague Soapbox Derby, even though Montague was actually the next town over. On the way there, we picked up my friend, Ben. Be brought a skeleton mask, which he wore and tried to scare people with.
     I made and built my car last year, but I used it again this year. It is inspired by 1920s race cars, with their long hoods and little wind windshields. This year I added a large, black barrel in the back to look like an old gas tank. I painted a radioactive symbol on it in yellow paint. I filled the barrel with water so that the car would be extra heavy and therefore go faster.
     There were a lot of very strange cars. One looked like a go kart frame painted green. There were a bunch of little stuffed frogs on it, along with one enormous stuffed frog that doubled as a seat. I raced it, but it always coasted to a halt short of the finish line.
     Another car was made out of junk. The wheels were enormous metal spools. There were at least four barrels stacked up in the back. The steering was made out of two rusty ice picks. The brake was an enormous metal pipe that was jammed against one of the rear wheels. When it was weighed, the driver was told that the car weighed 409 pounds, and that the limit was 450. The driver ran off. A minute later, he came back with a hammer, some nails, and some miscellaneous iron junk (gears, cannonballs, etc.) Surprisingly, he didn't crash! He did have some steering issues, however. Since the wheels were solid metal, they dug into the concrete and were hard to steer. When the driver tried to steer, it didn't work. He tried again, and he went too far. Fortunately, he didn't over correct and managed to fix his coarse.
      One car, however, did over correct. It was literally 3 feet long, and was painted green. It was made entirely of wood, with plastic lawnmower wheels. The driver of the car held it back at the starting line, but when she was supposed to release his car, she didn't. Ten seconds after the other car was released, an official came over and told her to let go of the car. When she released it, the driver rocked the car back and forth to try to gain speed. Then he started to over steer. The car veered to the right. He spun the wheel to the left. The car slid and veered to the left. This continued, each zigzag bigger than the last. A photographer was taking pictures of him from the grass. He didn't realize that he was going to get hit until the car was about a foot away. He jumped out of the way, and the car rolled over. The last I saw of it was the driver's mother carrying the car away. When it was his turn to race in the second heat, no one could find him or his car. The officials spent ten minutes looking for it, before I told them that the car had been carried off towards the vendors, and that he probably dropped out.
     There were many other cars as well. There was a rat rod car with real rust on it. There was a car with an enormous, metal chicken mounted on top. There was a car with pictures of snoopy on it. There was a brown car with two real missile cases on the sides, a remote control helicopter zip-tied to the side, and a very bad steering system.

Today I made this out of LEGOs.

I made up that a golden monkey lives in it.

The black thing on the front is an air intake. Air goes through the stack of cylinders and to the other black thing: a hot turbine. The turbine powers the propellers on the back. The neon yellow cylinders are neon because of the hot turbine.

       I hope you like it.