The Kirby Derby, Raleigh’s most popular home-grown, sponsor free, non-traditional block party, made its ninth appearance on the quaint neighborhood adjacent to Western Boulevard and Dorothea Dix campus. This year, the theme of the event was ‘The Future is Now’ and it provided for a lot of martian themed floats and sleek, space age soapbox cars.

The floats in the parade, which included all of the soapbox cars, were amazing! They featured America’s future (kids) whom we were explicitly warned NOT to feed.

The energy source of the future (wind) which, it turns out, can be fun!

There was the always entertaining Drag Race (Olympic event of the future?), the annual gender confused power walk. (Spoiler: the man in pink won the race)

Some of the derby cars were pretty amazing, with a lot of time and effort being put into each minor detail.

My favorite float? Beer2-D2.

Brett Favre even made an appearance!

Like I said, some of the derby cars put a lot of effort into the details.

Okay, so far we’ve covered the theme, the parade, and some of the racing. While all of this is integral to a good time, to spend all of my time on things such as this is kind of missing the point. The Kirby Derby, as I said last year, is most successful because of the people. The wonderful community on Kirby Street has graciously opened up its lawns and gardens to hundreds of people for the sake of having a good time as a community. Neighbors, guests, and friends came together and what resulted was a fantastic party. Throw in racing, crowd-sourced renditions of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ and ‘Living on a Prayer’, a parade, and warm (okay, HOT) weather, and you’ve got a recipe for a great experience at the Kirby Derby. I don’t know if there’s another neighborhood in Raleigh that can pull it off, but, isn’t it time more people tried?