Some of the biggest names in auto design are set to put their skills to the test this fall at Irvine’s Shady Canyon.
Designers from General Motors, Mazda, Nissan, Porsche, Volvo, Volkswagen, Audi and Chrysler are coming up with custom cars they’ll race themselves. The hitch: no engines.
The designers are taking part in the annual Extreme Gravity Racing Series, which showcases engineless racecars,elaborate soapbox racers,that rush downhill at speeds of up to 60 mph.
The series, in its fifth season, features a kids soap box derby as well as a corporate heat where executives get behind the wheel of an elaborate racer.
Some entrance fee proceeds go to pay foster kids who work the event.
The event is the brainchild of Don MacAllister, founder of Irvine-based Gravity Series Inc. and Irvine-based America Works for Kids, a nonprofit that mentors foster kids.
The series has taken on a life of its own.
Italy’s Pininfarina SPA, which designs Ferraris, and London-based Bentley Motors Ltd., part of Volkswagen AG, are designing serial-numbered collectible cars for the event.
Jim Shaw, Bentley’s head of concept engineering, is flying out from London with a team of six for the event.
Shaw plans to race Bentley’s car himself.
“For us, winning the race is everything,” he said. “The design is a function of the speed we wish to achieve,not the other way around.”
Last year, Bentley had a poor showing, according to Shaw.
General Motors won the race last year when six design studios competed. This year, nine design studios will be racing.
Absent from the race so far: BMW, Mercedes and Toyota.
$100,000 Bentley
Bentley’s cars for the executive and designer races are being developed in England and shipped to the U.S., he said.
Shaw said he and a colleague designed Bentley’s racer in their spare time.
The prototype corporate racer took about six months and $100,000 to develop, according to Shaw.
The automaker plans to sell the cars afterward.
Companies can keep the cars, MacAllister said. Most end up in corporate lobbies.
For the executive race, drivers get their choice of a Bentley or Pininfarina.
The cars are designed to go much faster than a typical kid’s soapbox car, MacAllister said.
Competing companies include Irvine’s Greenlight Financial Services Inc. and Costa Mesa money manager Leisure Capital Management Inc.
Many of Greenlight’s 100 or so workers take part in the event, said Ellen Brownstein, marketing director for Irvine-based Greenlight Financial Services Inc.
“If we’re going to do something, we want to put all our effort into it,” she said.
For many executives, the series is a chance to indulge their love of cars, “or maybe use this as a teambuilding thing,” said Walter Cruttenden, chief executive of Newport Beach-based Cruttenden Partners LLC and a financial backer of the event since its inception.
Some executives send their top sales people to the event as a perk, MacAllister said. About half of those taking part are women, he said. Most everyone brings family.
The Irvine Company got involved four years ago, said Murray Krow, the real estate company’s vice president of marketing, office and resort properties.
“It’s a very mediagenic event,” Krow said. “It’s a neat visual.”
The event, formerly held in Aliso Viejo, moved to the Irvine Spectrum last year where the Irvine Co. built a ramp for the cars.
This year, the gravity racers are set to utilize a natural downhill slope in Shady Canyon, the Irvine Co.’s golf and custom-home development.
There’s more skill and strategy to racing the cars than just rolling downhill, MacAllister said.
The day before the racers will “walk the hill” and choose the line they’ll follow.
There’s a way to adjust the “camber” or tilt of the wheel so that it goes faster, he said.
At the bottom of the hill, local auto dealers such as Crevier BMW, House of Imports and Newport Auto Center display some of their cars.
The event began five years ago with kids racing soapbox cars but in the past two years MacAllister added the corporate and designer races.
“I wanted to take the best elements of soapbox and make it California style,” he said.
Companies get kids involved with their teams, said Marr Leisure, president of Leisure Capital Management.
“This is not like going to a black tie gala,” he said. “This is a project where you’re actually in the trenches with the kids.”
For some foster kids, getting paid to take tickets or help clean up at the event may be their first paid job, according to MacAllister, who grew up in a foster home.
“He’s done so much for the kids,” Cruttenden said of MacAllister. “Don was a foster kid. He ended up homeless under the Huntington Beach pier.”
That could be the future of many foster kids who don’t learn the basics such as a handshake, how to get a driver’s license or how to apply for a job, MacAllister said.
