NASCAR Bound? Herbert Muench gave a good race...
Herbert Eric Muench Jr., son of Herbert and Lorraine Muench and brother of Charlie Muench, the Goop Inventor, won the 1936 All-American Soapbox Derby in Akron, Ohio.
The link below to the promotional movie about the event shows his winning race and then his triumph over the international champion as well. The enjoyable video provides an interesting glimpse of our national love of sporting diversions, and its "tribute to the ingenuity of the American boy" gives a great example of the "American Exceptionalism" often promoted in films of the time.
Rather than using the Soapbox Derby to launch a racing career and perhaps become the next Carl Edwards, Herbert Muench went on to use the scholarship to earn an engineering degree from Washington University in St. Louis.
http://archive.org/details/AllAmeri1934
The link below to the promotional movie about the event shows his winning race and then his triumph over the international champion as well. The enjoyable video provides an interesting glimpse of our national love of sporting diversions, and its "tribute to the ingenuity of the American boy" gives a great example of the "American Exceptionalism" often promoted in films of the time.
Rather than using the Soapbox Derby to launch a racing career and perhaps become the next Carl Edwards, Herbert Muench went on to use the scholarship to earn an engineering degree from Washington University in St. Louis.
http://archive.org/details/AllAmeri1934
