Teams

Always Flush Together

Garage Headquarters: Everett, WA

Driver: Dan Jackson

Mechanics: Chris Carlson, Stephanie Cleary, Marylou Aguilar, Wayne Akana

Nuts and Bolts:

When we said that Soapbox Race is coming to Seattle come rain or shine, team Always Flush Together took it very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that the five creative designers and engineers built a boat as their car – a hamster-powered pontoon boat with wheels. As Cleary explains, “Down south we make this special ‘life elixir’ more commonly known as moonshine, which is a lovely drink that cures any ail. But the police want to take it away, so we needed a fast vehicle that can outrun the gators and cops to get our elixir out to people in distress.”

As colleagues at Jamco, the teammates will be constructing their car at work with their grassroots plan to “take an ole pontoon boat we use for fishin’ flies and throw some wheels on it.” They’ve been training their hamsters day and night, although they admit it is a challenge to teach them to row. Still, the moonshine makers remain confident in their chances of race day glory. As Carlson put it: “Growin’ up we used to throw together ole tractor wheels an’ try skeetin’ down on the crags and between dem timbers…figure if we can dodge a couple hundred evergreens, ain’t no way we gonna be beat by some newfangled carbon fibers cars.” Take that, city slickers.