On the 1st of May Fireward participated in the Great Dunmow Soapbox Race, the second-largest soapbox race in the UK. The event, which has been cancelled for the last two years, made a powerful resurgence by raising around £20,000 for charities such as St Clare Hospice, The Robin Cancer Trust and Rainbow Rural. 

One of our sister company, The Dunmow Group, were the diamond sponsors of the race. We entered two soapboxes, one for Fireward and one for Dunmow, we then had to think about the designs. The most recognisable part of our system is the cylinder with the Reacton valve on top. We wanted everyone to know exactly what industry we were in so we decided that we would create a Fireward Cylinder. As Dunmow operates in this community, everyone has seen a Dunmow Skip Lorry, therefore we had to make the soapbox look like a miniature one. 

Now that the designs are complete, we had to figure out how we were going to bring everything to life. There were many rules and guidelines that our carts had to follow to pass the scrutineering including a weight and width limit, working breaks, a solid floor and a rigid steering system. Due to these requirements, we decided it was best to buy second-hand carts to create the foundations of our soapboxes. Over at Dunmow, our skilled yard welders stripped them until they were just a frame, allowing us to build our designs around them.  

We now had a blank canvas, so we could begin the building process. We worked with Creative SD who helped finalise our designs and build our soapboxes. 

The soapboxes were finally ready for race day, and so were our drivers- suited in boiler suits, helmets and gloves. They looked amazing! Each soapbox had three runs down the track to try and get the fasted time. Our drivers had to skilfully dodge obstacles, and go over ramps. Although the signature valve fell off on the last run, we managed to make it to the finish line all three times.

There were over 15,000 people in Great Dunmow, and over 40 soapboxes entered the race. Unfortunately, we didn't win the overall races, but Dunmow did win the prize for 'Best Design'. We cannot wait until next year, we have already started designing!

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