History
As with everything else, community involvement and participation has been on a decrease. In Ridgeway, Virginia this has been very noticeable over the past 10 to 15 years. Years ago it was not uncommon for the town of Ridgeway to hold parades and various other community gatherings, events where the entire family could come out and have a good time of fellowship. These events allowed people to get away from the everyday hassles that life can throw their way and enjoy the company of their neighbors. They also were a great opportunity for new members of the community to meet people and establish personal connections. However there are no longer any parades in Ridgeway and nor are there any other town events aimed at the entire family. After all, with time there comes change, but not every change is for the better.
Over the past couple of years several members of the Ridgeway Ruritan club have been trying to revive this community togetherness. Their first attempt was community barn dances, where local musicians could come out and play music and the community could come out listen, enjoy some refreshments and if the spirit came over them, they could even do a little dancing. For the kids, they had designed a game area where the kids could bring and play their own games or they could try their hand at such standards as checkers. However after several attempts, it became apparent the time was not right for these events. So another idea had to be considered. Fortunately several of the members working on this project were not only involved with the Ruritans but were also active in scouting, some with the cubs and others with the boy scouts but all had knowledge of cub activities. This knowledge eventually would give birth to a new idea aimed at getting people out and active.
But before we can get there, we need to backtrack a little and come down another road that will will help shed light on this initiative. As with most cub scout packs, Cub Scout Pack 168 of Ridgeway would hold an annual Pinewood Derby. Several years ago, in an effort to help minimize the amount of work the dads were doing on their sons' cars, the pack added an adult class. Along with this they also added a class for the boy scouts. The additional adult class added a whole new level of competition since not only did it attract the dads of current cubs but also attracted the dads of previous cubs that were now in the troop. When these past dads showed up, it shed light on an often undiagnosed affliction known as Derby Dad Syndrome or DDS for short.
So here is where the roads converge. Being aware of DDS, the ruritan members started developing another idea of an activity that could bring the Ridgeway community together for a few hours of fellowship and at the same time offer relief to DDS sufferers. The original idea, similar to the cub scouts, was to hold an annual pinewood car race, a race open to the entire community. Originally called the Ridgeway Ruritan Open Invitational Pinewood Derby, the event never got past the initial design stages. The ruritan members realized that an annual race would not have a hook to get people out and involved considering many of the participants would probably be scouts and scout parents and they could already run at the pack derby. Plus the name was just so long and did not have an pep to it. So the idea was shelved, at least for a while until one of the members started playing around with the name.
If you're not familiar with Ridgeway, it is just a few miles south of Martinsville, Virginia and the Martinsville Speedway. Hence NASCAR is pretty big in the area. So he started trying to develop a name that was similar to NASCAR but it had to mean something. Eventually it hit him, SAPCAR and it would mean Saturday Afternoon Pine Car Auto Racing Series and actually had a hidden joke, sap as in pinesap since it was a pinewood car series. Now they had a name, but again a single race would not have a hook, so how could the format be changed to encourage participation? Work then began to put some depth into SAPCAR. Eventually a set of car specs, race rules and a points system were developed and adopted as the official rule book for SAPCAR. The rule books were printed and distributed and racing soon began. The original concept was to have a series of races, each comprised of classes based on age, each on a different track and to accumulate points based on the finishing position. Races would be single heat, double elimination with a points system developed to handle up to a 32 car bracket. Since the series was developed by the Ridgeway Ruritan Club, it was decided to hold all events at the Ruritan building. Similar to all other forms of sports and racing, SAPCAR needed a logo. The original black and white version is still in use as the cover for the official rule book and there are now two additional colorized versions of the official logo.
As with most things, even with the best of intents, we only managed to race on one track for both seasons one and two. However repairs are schedules to begin shortly to recondition a wooden track for season three. The original concept was for multiple tracks so that a car builder could not get the "feel" for the track and build multiple dominating cars. Tracks surfaces and lengths were considered so builders would need to develop and build short and long track cars, wood track and aluminum track cars and the builders would not which car they needed until they showed up for the race.
The original season consisted of 6 individual racing events with a combination of 5 classes ( Pre-teen, Teen, Young Adult, Adult, and Limited Modified). During season one, the Teen class and Young Adult class each only had a single full time participant, which made for runaway championships. Due to this, prior to the start of season two, classes were realigned. So season two consisted of 6 races, each with only 4 competition classes, Youth, Young Adult, Adult and Limited Modified.
Adult racer Donnie Davis was able to dominate season one with 6 wins and a championship trophy. However in season two, Junior (James) Whitlow, a member of the WE Racing team, stepped up to bat and took home a few first place finishes to give Donnie a scare for his second championship trophy. Donnie would prevail in the end of season two and take home his second consecutive season trophy. Season one also saw a dominator in the Young Adult class. Brent Whitlow, also a member of the WE Racing team, swept the season with 6 wins and took home the championship trophy. However, as stated earlier, his secret was that he was the only full time racer in his division. Brandon O'Dell ran a limited schedule and was unable to compete for the points championship. The realigned classes for season 2 sparked a brother / sister family feud in the Young Adult class between WE Team members Brent Whitlow and Lorri Seale. It was obvious at the beginning of the season that Brent would not be as strong as he was in season one as Lorri won the season opener and then swept races 3 thru 5, yielding first place to Brent only twice on her way to win the class championship.
There are a few changes for season three. The race season has been extended to an 8 race schedule. Events will also begin later in the morning in hopes of bringing in more of a crowd of racers!
The overall goal of SAPCAR is to involve the members of the Ridgeway community in an activity that provides fellowship time. The Ruritans also use the events as fund raisers to help support their many causes and are also looking for some younger members to join the organization. While the world seems to be shrinking with global economies, individuals are becoming more isolated. With more activities for kids to be involved in, parents find themselves constantly running and with what little time does remain, they are focused on inward on household chores. This is extremely disheartening but even more so in our area where most everything is volunteer (rescue and fire) so if we don't start teaching the next generation about community involvement and service, then where are the volunteers going to come from?
The schedule is posted on the links directly to the left of this page under the list of SAPCAR links. If you or anyone you know is interested in helping out the community or participating in SAPCAR please contact the webmaster or email our yahoo group.