Cardboard Carnival 2009

Yesterday, WKIT, Bangor’s rock and roll station, held their annual Cardboard Carnival at the Essex Street hill. (For those outside of Maine, we pronounce this kahdbooud kahnival.) This event is essentially a soapbox derby, but with sleds. There are only three items that can be used to make your sled. Being it’s called the Cardboard Carnival, you can guess that one of those items is cardboard. The second item is duct tape, and the third item is paint. Contestants each take a turn riding their sled down the hill and winners are decided based on the furthest distance traveled.



Here are some pictures of some of the great sleds created by the people who entereded the event. You'll see a school bus, a couple of race cars, a taco shell, the flamingo ride, there are couple of different spider mobiles (one the guy rode inside and he shot silly-string out of the mouth as he went down the hill to show his ability to also shoot a web and the other had to two riders dressed up as flies who rode down the back of the spider), the tow truck from the movie Cars, a VW Love Bus, the Yellow Submarine. There were a lot of others I didn't get pictures of from tanks to a guy who just rode a square piece of cardboard!


The runs were done in a couple of ways. The first run was for sledders who rode solo. The second run was for multiple rider sleds. There was also a prize awarded for the best looking/most creative one.

WKIT's Mark 'the Shark' Young was the emcee and kept the crowd entertained and had a funny line when the Back to Future Delorean (pictured to the right) went down the hill saying that if he didn't win, he was just going to go back in time and try again and we would never know!

Yesterday’s event had about cardboard creations in vying for a prize. The weather was about 30 degrees and sunny. About 400 people showed up to watch and they were treated to a great time. It was my first time attending, and I gotta be honest…it was wicked awesome!

For more information and the winners (I assume that winners will be posted), go to WKIT’s website.

Thanks to Trace Oullette (pictured to the right, kneeling, helping WKIT's sales guy Bill getting the sledders out of the starting gate)and the Bangor Parks and Rec Department and all of the sponsors who made the Cardboard Carnival for 2009 such a great success.

And congrats to all who participated!

Looking down Essex Street Hill. See that dot in the center? That's a person. HUGE hill!!

Mark 'the Shark' Young from WKIT (on right in blue hat with microphone) watches as the Flamingo Sled begins its downward journey