This year was Ricky Desens’ first as a driver.
He’s already a World Champion.
Ricky, 11, of Webster, won the stock rally World Championship race at the All-American Soap Box Derby races in Akron, Ohio, this past Saturday, July 24.
His win is the Rochester area’s seventh world championship at Akron, and its fifth in the last 10 years, according to Irondequoit’s Mark Scuderi, executive director of the Greater Rochester Soap Box Derby.
“I’m very excited,” Ricky said from his home early this week. “It was my first year in the derby and my first trip to Akron. ... I just drove straight down the track.”
He rolled to victory, earning a trophy that’s almost as tall as he is. “It (the trophy) comes up to my neck,” said Ricky, who’s going into sixth grade at Webster’s Willink Middle School this fall.
Now Ricky says he plans to keep racing derby cars. He also likes drag racing, which he does with his dad; plus boating, tubing and water skiing.
He said Scuderi helped him build and align his car, and also had the support of his parents, Rick and Terry Desens of Webster.
Scuderi said the local contingent, which was over 100-strong, at Akron also celebrated another winner with Rochester ties there. Michael Morawski, 15, of Guilderland, N.Y., who won the rally masters division World Championship last weekend, also partially built his car in Scuderi’s Irondequoit driveway.
In all, the Rochester area sent five local champions, 10 rally champions and three “super kids” — the designation for special-needs derby participants — to Akron this year.
In addition to the division winners, Rebekah Hoak, 13, of Holley placed fifth in her rally super stock car division; and Nicky Vaccaro, 14, of Chili, placed eighth in the rally master’s division (the same one won by Michael).
It was the second consecutive year Hoak has placed at Akron. She finished sixth in the rally stock division in 2009. That means she’s the first derby participant ever from Rochester to place twice at Akron, Scuderi said.
While Rochester crowns local champions in five divisions at the Greater Rochester Soap Box Derby, held the first weekend in June every year on Lake Shore Boulevard in Irondequoit, derby enthusiasts may also qualify for Akron by competing (and placing) year-round in what are called rally races. The top six qualifiers from New York in each of the five rally divisions also earn the trip to Akron.
Besides the races this year, Scuderi and longtime Greater Rochester Soap Box Derby board member and volunteer Frank Deil participated in the filming of a movie this past weekend.
The movie, called “25 Hill,” was being filmed at the derby this year, Scuderi explained, and is being directed by actor Corbin Bernsen (he was in the series “L.A. Law”). It’s due out next year — and you might just catch Deil and Scuderi on the big screen.
