► Insider view of wacky London Red Bull race
► ‘The idea came after a night in the pub…’
► How to build a soapbox with attitude
We’ve all been there: had an outrageous idea in the pub, giggled and then left it on the bar, marked ‘Nice idea, but we’ll never get round to doing it.’ Not for Kuda Muchirahondo, a colleague in the digital publishing team at Bauer Media.
He and a band of mates were enjoying a few drinks in a Nottingham pub this spring when they asked themselves what they’d design if they won a place to compete in the Red Bull Soapbox Race in London. But rather than sit idly on the idea, they ended up entering and became one of 60 teams selected from 1600 entrants.
Their steed? A home-made ski-lift, built around an old go-kart frame converted into a classic bubble cablecar. Entrants have to imagine their wildest soapbox and deliver it for the race at Alexandra Palace in June 2024 and so they got to work.
‘It was a classic case of a drunken conversation in the pub becoming the real deal – we really didn’t think it would lead to us competing in the Red Bull Soapbox Race in London,’ said Muchirahondo, 23. ‘I suppose it’s the classic sign of a good night out!’
Ski U Later: how a ski-lift racing car was born…
The bunch of Nottingham Trent University friends were skiing buddies and so the seed of their barking mad idea – Team Ski U Later – was born.
‘We thought: let’s make a ski-lift for the Red Bull race,’ he muses. ‘Ross Denvir, whose idea it was, does CAD [computer-aided design] and product design, so he helped us design this madcap cable-car, based around a kids’ toy.
‘It started off as a Ferrari go-kart we bought from Facebook Marketplace for £100. We chopped it to pieces, welded the chassis to make it longer and wider, fitted foam panels for the doors and bodywork to turn it into a ski-lift and then – the finishing touch – we added a pool noodle for the cable wire and painted it. It looked pretty cool.’
The Ski U Later team entry proved a popular design with the public, too, coming third in the poll of spectators’ favourite vehicles. Watch the video below to see what they were up against and marvel at the design ingenuity on offer.
The A-Team meets Ski Sunday
In a scene straight out of popular 80s TV series The A-Team, the ski bums built their car during an intensive sprint using nothing more than a few rudimentary tools and buckets of enthusiasm. ‘We made it in Lucas Campbell-Butcher’s workshop in three days. We were up until 2am and it was hard work, but a lot of fun. We’re very proud of the result.’
Competing with fellow Nottingham student Phil Newsom, the quartet made the journey to London on 22 June 2024 and lined up for their turn at the top of the run.
‘We were 26th in the order. Four other teams had crashed at that point – some were quite heavy impacts, so we were pretty nervous. Especially in front of 16,000 spectators! But our run went really well and we were amazed by how the ski-lift held up over the jumps and obstacles, even if most of the bodywork had disintegrated by the bottom of the run. It was so exhilarating.’
The team, sponsored by ski companies Wasteland Travel and OOSC Clothing, is now eyeing up a repeat entry in the 2026 soapbox challenge. Seems gravity racing is big business – even if you do risk coming back down to earth with a bump.