Downhill, very fast.

One of my greatest memories of childhood is the great Billy Cart race. For you American people reading this, a billy cart is a soapbox racer. I think. You people don’t speak English proper.

Anyway, the house here is at the top of a hill, with a long driveway. A very hard left turn at the end of the drive takes you down a steep road, unmade, which runs on the downhill for a good kilometer at least. I don’t remember how old I was when this took place, probably around 6. My brother and a few of his friends had built billycarts, and they decided that a race starting at the house and ending at the bottom of the hill in the road was in order.

So basically, 4 or 5 ten year olds pushed off and rattled, rolled and wobbled down this road. They got up to great speeds, one of them came off the road and hit a telegraph pole with such force he was thrown out of the cart and into the fence. Good speed, that was called. The carts mostly consisted of seats from primary school chairs (any aussie knows exactly the plastic seat I mean), a couple of cross beams to stick the wheels to, a rope on the front beam for steering and a beam down the middle holding it all together. I’ve since heard that some people had brakes built in, but for my brother and his mates they braked by dropping their feet to the road and waiting to stop.

I was reminded about this on “Can We Help?” tonight, where a couple of blokes in a shed lamented that kids these days don’t ride carts anymore. It’s true, and it’s a shame. A good, active, creative outdoor activity that has fallen out of favour.

Now, I’m not saying kids should be allowed to ride carts down roads anymore, we knew there would be no traffic at the time is all. But there’s a million soft grassy slopes to ride.

I’d like to see a Billy cart revival – blokes in sheds building carts with their kids and taking them to a park or reserve to race them. Lots of nice outdoor fun! So if you know a kid, make em a cart.