Course de caisse de savon

We were not really certain what to expect, but I’d seen a small advert on the main road last week that the little village of Meurville were having a ‘caisse de savon’ on Sunday. I’d translated this as a ‘soap box race’. ‘Brilliant’ I thought ‘how good could that be?’

I’d mentioned it to Brian, who had not been quite so excited as me, and also to our guests, in the hope they’d find it a quaint local charm.

We arrived at the village around 2pm, after being diverted from our usual approach to the village. This made me even more excited. We parked up, and a young lad directed us along the side of the road, telling us to be aware of the tractors.

As we headed up through the village we could here a voice chatting away over the loudspeaker. We understood the gist of it, that the cars were getting ready.

The crowds started to build. Not really crowds as such, but there were plenty of spectators already gathered behind the barriers. Brian had given me specific instructions that if we were standing on a bend we needed to be behind the hay bales.

We found a great viewing spot at the last bend. It was all looking very professional, in a soap box sort of way.

The suspense was definitely building, and as we saw the green flag waving, the crowd encouraging and the commentator getting terribly excited we saw the first competitor rounding the corner. Hoorah…the crowd cheering and clapping, he came tearing down he hill, shaking the little kart across the finish line and leaving the spectators ready for the next one.