DerbyDad03 wrote in
:

There are other cheating methods, but it's getting much better. Just
like every other sport or competition, there will always be cheaters.
When we raced, we pushed the rules to the very limit, but we never
cheated. We worked with a team of 3 other families and we all have
rules that are nicknamed after us because we pushed the existing rules
just far enough that the inspectors had to allow what we did the first
time they saw it. The things we tried weren't illegal, we just
interpreted the rules differently based on the way they were worded.
The next racing season we'd find that a rule was added or modified to
eliminate the "grey area" that we often played in. In some cases what
we did became part of the plans, in other cases it was specifically
dis-allowed. Those were some fun times.

That is the challenge of any racing series, whether it's Soap
Box Derby or Formula One - how to you come up with rules that
allow some measure of creativity, but still preserve fairness
and punish those who take it too far (i.e. cheat).

It is a shame that the Derby organizers felt the only way they
could handle it was to take the creativity out of it. As you
say, the skills to make mechanical innovations are becoming
rarer, most of the creativity in today's youth is in software.

John