{"id":1459,"date":"2011-07-01T19:58:02","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T19:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/product\/import-placeholder-for-26\/"},"modified":"2022-12-05T12:49:28","modified_gmt":"2022-12-05T17:49:28","slug":"champions-cheaters-and-childhood-dreams","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/product\/champions-cheaters-and-childhood-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions, Cheaters, and Childhood Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Updated Edition, with Epilogue and Revised Appendices<\/h3>\n<p>From the mid-1930s, the All-American Soap Box Derby has enabled thousands of youngsters to use their curiosity, ingenuity, and determination. \u2009Through first-person accounts, <i>Champions, Cheaters, and Childhood Dreams<\/i> chronicles a history of the race from a hillside in Dayton to the corporate-sponsored, star-studded event it became in the 1950s and 1960s. \u2009The influence of the Great Depression, World War II, Civil Rights, Women\u2019s Liberation, Vietnam, and Watergate helped shape and transform the race from a simple amateur event into an American icon. \u2009The revised edition has been updated to include a history of the race through 2010 and revised appendices.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Loney Kline, Akron City Champion 1934 and 1935<\/strong><br \/>\nI always built little cars. \u2009I used to get crates that melons came in, put wheels on them and run them around.\u2026We were building crazy things like this even before the derby started.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gilbert Klecan, 1946 Champion<br \/>\n<\/strong>I primed (my car) and sanded it and tried to get several coats on, but it wasn\u2019t the smoothest job because it was a rush job. \u2009Then when I got to Akron they put a big number nine on it and that was rough. \u2009So Chuck Boswell gave me black graphite to put on it. \u2009I\u2019m sweaty, and wiping my face, and I\u2019m slapping the graphite on the car to make it smoother and it got on me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Stan Howard, 1955 Columbus, Georgia City Champion<br \/>\n<\/strong>My parents had to sign all these releases in case I got hurt or anything. \u2009Even back in 1954 you had to satisfy the government.<\/p>\n<p><strong>K. D. Cline, 1967 \u200aWorld Champion<br \/>\n<\/strong>I have seven brothers and sisters, and all of us kids raced in the Soap Box Derby. \u2009My dad was regional manager for Northern Natural Gas and we moved around a lot.\u2026We got into building derby cars for about twenty years.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Jim Gronen, Champion for a Day, 1973<br \/>\n<\/strong>That\u2019s why the scandal of the Soap Box Derby was really huge. \u2009It fit in with something that was happening on a collective level.<\/p>\n<h3>About the author<\/h3>\n<div class=\"author\">\n<p>Melanie Payne is an award-winning journalist and writer. Her work has appeared in magazines and newspapers nationwide. She has worked as a staff writer for the\u00a0<i>Akron Beacon Journal<\/i>, the\u00a0<i>Sacramento Bee<\/i>\u00a0newspapers and\u00a0<i>The News-Press<\/i>\u00a0in Fort Myers, Florida. A Cleveland, Ohio native, she currently lives in Southwest Florida with her husband, Rodney Williams.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<h3>Memories of the Soap Box Derby<\/h3>\n<h4>by Melanie Payne<\/h4>\n<p>Pages: 241<\/p>\n<p>Size: 6 x 9<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":2767,"template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[85984],"product_tag":[17419,97771,97583,316,86653],"class_list":{"0":"post-1459","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-ohio-history-and-culture","7":"product_tag-akron-beacon-journal","8":"product_tag-ohio-author","9":"product_tag-soap-box-derby","10":"product_tag-sports","11":"product_tag-university-of-akron-press","13":"first","14":"instock","15":"shipping-taxable","16":"product-type-simple"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/1459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=1459"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uakron.edu\/uapress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=1459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}