Every year, for the past 3 years, I’ve gone to the Kirby Derby, and every year I’ve come away with the same smile on my face for the whole bike ride home. Everything about this neighborhood party has everything a good neighborhood party should have: costumes, cross-dressed people running down the street, responsible amounts of drinking and yelling/booing at kids for kicking full beer cans over (“they’ll understand later on, we’re just training them early about priorities”) and giant feathered chicken carts flying into hay bale barricades/the crowd.

This year, however, was special. This year marked the tenth annual Kirby Derby, replete with families, friends and a general sense of amazement about what’s developed over the past decade. This year saw the return of the R2-Beer2, the debut of the ‘Donk’ racer (complete with chain steering wheel and dice on the mirror), and a surprisingly well built cast of racers. The usual feats of strength and agility were in order for the day: the Pinecar derby, the parade, the much anticipated Drag Race, and, of course, the soapbox derby.

My favorite part of the above photo is the father in the background.

New this year to the Derby was the group of protesters from a temperance group, aptly dubbed the Public Morals Society (and you people thought acronyms were dead), bravely chanting things such as “‘K-I-R-B-Y’, What does it spell? DAMNATION!”. Their conservative garb and disdain for the Derby was a very clever play on certain conservative value based political movements.

The drag race, as usual, provided the same gender confused pandemonium as years past, and a winner was crowned after one heat.

Finally, the Soapbox Derby – where people hurdle themselves downhill with only their reflexes and the quality of the their design to rely on. As I’ve been to several Derbies, the quality of craftsmanship has improved immensely. Some may argue that this takes away the fun of seeing derby cars completely disintegrate by their second run, and while there is merit for hoping for catastrophic failure, the time and effort that is put into these cars is quite impressive!

The chicken from the opening shot got a great up close view of the crowd, mainly by plowing right into it. No one was hurt, thankfully!

So, another Kirby Derby has come and gone, and all I can say is a huge THANK YOU to the neighborhood for such a wonderful event. As I said in a past post, the best part of the Kirby Derby is it’s goal – to bring a neighborhood together and throw an awesome party, for everyone to pitch in lawn space and a one-day-a-year sacrifice of their road to let everyone else enjoy the camaraderie of the community. It’s emphasizing all the right things and everyone who goes to the Kirby Derby leaves just like I did, with a big smile on their face, all the way home.

(a smile and maybe a fake mustache, too… if you’re lucky!)

Previous Kirby Derby Posts:

• Kirby Derby 3000
• Kirby Derby 2009