It hasn’t been held every year since, but in 1939, McHenry’s Soap Box Derby raced down Waukegan Road, starting at Landmark School.

When that race comes back June 20, after a six-year hiatus, more than 30 boys and girls, ages 7 to 13, will again go racing down the hill toward McHenry High School’s East Campus.

Justin Bender, now 25, raced in the event starting when he was 7. The McHenry man is part of a committee bringing it back.

“It is something really fun that brought a lot of joy to me and the community – something unique and fun," Bender said.

He also has a deep love of history and the history of soapbox racing in McHenry. From what he’s found, there were soapbox races on Waukegan Street from 1939 to the mid-1950s.

In 2003, Jim Marinangel brought the races back. A member of the Kiwanis Club of McHenry, Brian Cunat, also was Kiwanis International president for the 2001-02 year and suggested it could be an event for the club, without knowing its history, Marinangel said.

While researching the race and a possible track location, it was Pete Merkel, then director of McHenry’s park and recreation department, who found old news stories and photos of the 1939 race, Marinangel said.

“That is the tradition aspect. It is in the same steps of people who had done that when they were young,” he added.

For 17 years, the local Kiwanis Club ran the annual race, with the last one in 2019. COVID-19 shut down the event in 2020, and there wasn’t interest among the current membership to bring it back once restrictions were lifted, Marinangel said.

Bender credits Marinangel and Joe Ferguson of Rockford – where another race is held – as mentors, teaching him how to race and helping him with his cars.

“That was another aspect of racing: people that would go out of their way to teach you stuff,” Bender said.

He was not the first in his family to run in the soapbox derby. His older brother and sister were the first to compete, as he waited to be old enough to try it himself.

“I continued to race for six years, the most you could do at that time” in McHenry, Bender said. But in total, he raced for 13 years in the stock division, and at one point was the No. 1 points-getter nationally as he and his mother traveled the country so he could compete in soapbox derbies.

Soapbox racing isn’t that dissimilar to a pinewood derby. Each car and driver weighs the same. The cars are put on a starting ramps and the gate drops, sending car and driver down the hill.

But there are no tracks for the cars to stay on. That is where some talent comes in, Marinangel said.

“Our track is a street, with imperfections. The drivers have to figure out the best way to go. The ones that figure that out are the ones that end up winning,” he added.

Bender remembers some of the road’s secrets. There is a little dip in Waukegan Road, right where it meets Green Street. If your car hits that dip just right, “it will slingshot you down the track,” Bender said.

Top speeds can reach 30 or 35 mph. There was a radar out there one year that caught cars at 29 mph, and that was at about Green Street, Marinangel said.

Although crashes are rare, the course is lined with hay bales to provide cushion, just in case.

The good news for parents is that they do not have to buy a regulation soapbox car for their children to participate. Those can cost $1,000 a kit, Bender said.

Instead, organizers have 31 premade cars. For the $50 fee, entrants will get a race T-shirt, lunch and a trophy. The cars – and helmets – are first-come, first-served, but it’s common to have more than one driver run with the same car, Bender said.

An information meeting and build clinic is set for 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 12, at the McHenry Recreation Center, 3636 Municipal Drive. May 23 is the registration deadline for the June 20 race, and a practice run is set for June 13.

The race winner qualifies to go to the national event, July 12 to 18 in Akron, Ohio.

For information, go to mchenry.soapboxderby.org or email organizers at mchenry@soapboxderby.org.