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The Boxtrolls at All-American Soap Box Derby World Championship Finals
AKRON, OHIO, July 17th, in
the year of our Lord 2014 – America's iconic
FirstEnergy All-American Soap Box Derby holds its 77th annual
World Championship finals at Derby Downs in Akron, Ohio on
Saturday, July 26th – and characters from the Boxtrolls movie
will be joining the fun, even racing down the track in their own
custom-built car. Focus Features, which releases LAIKA’s family
event movie The Boxtrolls nationwide on Friday, September 26th,
is partnering with the International Soap Box Derby and inviting
families attending the World Championship to explore the
fantastical world of The Boxtrolls as an official sponsor of the
FirstEnergy All-American Soap Box Derby.
At Derby Downs all day Saturday before the final races, fans
will be able to meet the Boxtrolls, view the custom-built car on
display, get free Boxtrolls gear, check out exclusive sneak
preview clips from the new movie, and enter the Boxtrolls’
fantastical home environment with an immersive photo experience.
Following the day's interactive activities, quirky, mischievous
creatures Fish, Shoe, and Sparky - in a racer powered by gravity
and steered by the Boxtrolls themselves – will make their
inaugural run on the speedway course in an exhibition race just
before the Derby finals, with thousands of fans cheering the
group across the finish line.
During the week-long festival, interactive experiences will
include Boxtrolls surprises at the Monday, July 21st “Rock the
Rec” event and the Thursday, July 24th “Topside Show,” at which
the stunning custom-built soap box car from the world of the
Boxtrolls will be unveiled.
The Boxtrolls join a long line of special guests at the Soap Box
Derby in Akron who have included Presidents Nixon and Reagan,
Academy Award winners James Stewart and Tom Hanks, and NASCAR
legend Dale Earnhardt. Thousands of local fans and visitors
cheer racers from around the world who compete in a variety of
divisions, integrating science, technology, engineering, and
math into an educational curriculum and event series.
Called “the greatest amateur racing event in the world,” the
Soap Box Derby is the preeminent youth racing program, with the
World Championship finals held each July at the world-famous
Derby Downs in Akron. Girls and boys, ages 7-18, from throughout
the U.S. and several foreign countries bring the racers they
have built and driven to victory in their home communities.
The first youth Soap Box race in the U.S. was organized in 1934
by a Dayton-based newspaper photographer who expected 19 kids to
compete. Instead, a staggering 362 kids showed up with homemade
cars built of orange crates, sheet tin, wagon, and baby-buggy
wheels to compete in what was to become the first Soap Box
Derby.
The sport raced into its heyday over the next several decades,
with Boys’ Life reporting in 1959 that 3,000,000 people
participated in some form of derby activity each year, including
over 160 local derbies and the annual All-American in Akron.
Opening nationwide Friday, September 26th, The Boxtrolls is a
family event movie from LAIKA, that introduces audiences to a
new breed of family – The Boxtrolls, a community of quirky,
mischievous creatures who have lovingly raised an orphaned human
boy named Eggs in the amazing cavernous home they’ve built
beneath the streets of Cheesebridge. When the town’s villain,
Archibald Snatcher, comes up with a plot to get rid of the
Boxtrolls, Eggs decides to venture above ground, “into the
light,” where he meets and teams up with fabulously feisty
Winnie. Together, they devise a daring plan to save Eggs’
family. Based upon the book Here Be Monsters, by Alan Snow, The
Boxtrolls is directed by Anthony Stacchi and Graham Annable and
is MPAA-rated PG.