The Day Gravity Died: 2012 Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby

The 5th annual Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby was held May 5, 2012 on the West Prospect Street hill. Lots of great cars came out including a rolling office cubicle, a functional arcade game machine, and a giant metal rooster from New England. This year, however, the event ended in controversy (technically there was also controversy last year, albeit only in my head, when the X-Wing Fighter car was two votes short in voting for “crowd pleaser” after all the fans left when it the rained, but I digress).

The Controversy:

During the final race, which determines the first, second, and third place winners, the Holy Family Club car driven by “Jason” appeared to block another car driven by “Rob.” The winner, “Jeff,” who was way out in front, caught most of the 2nd and 3rd place action on his rear-facing car-cam. This video shows the action.


In the video, it appears as though Jason in the Holy Family car (white) swerves to block Rob’s car (red) from passing several times. The red car’s right front wheel collides with the rear left side of the white car right before the finish line. Jeff’s car-cam mysteriously cuts out right before the collision.

Rob began yelling “that’s not racing! that’s not racing!” before entering the pit area. A visibly upset Rob pushed his car to its final pit area while gaggles of excited children played video games on the totally awesome Pac-Man car nearby. Rob continued his tirade to anyone that would listen. Jason disappeared almost immediately and did not collect his trophy

 On the NASBRA facebook fan page comments began on Saturday night about the legality of contact during soapbox derby races. Jeff’s car-cam video was posted (a very cool video, I might add). The back-and-forth on Facebook continued through Sunday. Sometime between Sunday evening (9:30PM) and Monday (9:52AM) all comments newer than 6:42AM May 5 were removed from the Facebook page wall. This included all comments regarding the controversy and all innocuous general posts from other fans. By 12:47PM May 7 the comments were restored.

Rob was very vocal on Facebook and his comments seem to suggest that the race organizers condone or even encouraged Jason’s behavior. He alleges that the Holy Family car was given a head start by a starter whose back was facing the drivers (Jeff’s Car-Cam Video shows the starter was facing the drivers). He also alleges that Mario Andretti, the checkered flag waver of the day, was so outraged by the final race he left immediately in disgust. He alleges that Jason was drunk during the race and the race organizers allowed a visibly drunk man to continue racing. Rob’s comments also suggest that he should be thanked for building such great competitive cars and “raising the bar” for the event.

I have seen no online rebuttal comments from Jason.

• Did the Holy Family Club car deliberately block Rob’s car?
• Was the driver too intoxicated to drive?
• Did Mario Andretti leave immediately after the final race despite appearing in photos with the winners?
• Does Rob deserve to be thanked just for participating?
• Did the Holy Family car get a head start? And did the race organizers facilitate a head start?
• Did the race organizers condone the Holy Family car’s behavior?
• Was Mario Andretti somehow in on the whole thing, perhaps giving the Holy Family car driver pointers on blocking techniques?
• Would the X-Wing Fighter car have won crowd-pleaser in 2011 if the crowd hadn’t dispersed when it rained, including the builder’s own wife and children?
• Would the X-Wing Fighter car builder’s wife and children have even voted for his car even though they knew how much work he put into it and how much attention to detail there was? I mean, the frigging R2-D2 spun around for crying out loud? How could that not win? Crowd seemed awfully pleased to me. Did anyone else’s car have spinning droids? umm...No. There weren’t any droids at all…it was just cars…regular boring cars. What planet am I on? It’s like everyone has completely lost it and I’m the only one with any taste.
• Is it a coincidence that Jeff’s video stops just before the collision?
• Is Rinker’s hair real?
• What was up with THIS GUY?
• Is THIS PHOTO doctored to exaggerate the crowd and support the poster's point about safety?
• Is it coincidence that the aggressive car's sponsor is an establishment that the race organizer's frequent?

The answer to most of these questions is “who cares.” It’s supposed to be a bunch of grown-ass men and women rolling down a hill on home-made contraptions. But the actions of some and reactions of others likely have ended our annual soapbox derby.

5th Annual Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby

Remember to come out to West Prospect Street this Saturday for the annual Nazareth adult soapbox derby. This year promises to be nearly as fun as last year.

Kazoo Parade 2011

The Nazareth Kazoo Parade was held this morning to celebrate Independence Day.

A highlight of this year's event was the grand marshal Abbe Graber, of Saugerties, N.Y. Graber, a professional kazoo player and kazoo craftsman, was invited to the borough by the Nazareth Area Chamber of Commerce to serve as grand marshal of the parade.

Anyhoo, here is a video of the parade rounding the corner onto Main Street.

2011 Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby

The 4th annual Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby took place Saturday May 7, 2011 on West Prospect Street. It was a really great day. There were over 40 cars from at least 4 states battling it out for top cart. A steady rain at around 2:30 pm cleared out most spectators but the race continued uninterrupted. Here is a slideshow of pictures from the day:

You can review race results and check out more pics at the official site: Click Here

Be sure to join the Facebook Group.

Read about the official 2011 WeirdNazareth.com car HERE.

Check out my live Tweets from the event HERE.

2011 Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby Registration OPEN!

Click Here for Registration Page

2010 Pumpkin Carving Contest Bust

The 2010 WeirdNazareth Pumpkin Carving Contest was a bummer. We only got two or three legitimate entries. I say "legitimate" entries because in my two years of running an online pumpkin contest I have noticed that there are internet pumpkin trolls. Internet pumpkin trolls are people, who are usually quite talented at carving, that troll the internet for various and random contests to enter their pumpkins in.

That said, we did get two entries from actual WeirdNazareth readers, Nicole Burns' Scooby Doo pumpkin and Jeff Gum's flying dog-thing pumpkin are shown below. Thanks to both of you for your pumpkin entries! Nice job.

2010 Nazareth Halloween Parade

2010 Results:

BEST APPERARING INDIVIDUAL:

1ST, “LITTLE BOO PEEP” JoAnne Vanatta From Nazareth

2nd, “PRINCESS BELLE” Sarah Banko From Bushkill Township

3rd, “WITCH and BLACK CAT” Nicole and Brianna Snyder From Nazareth

MOST COMMICAL:

1ST, HOMESTEAD KENNELS From Nazareth

2nd, “HAWIAN LUAU” Center for Animals Health and Welfare From Easton

BEST APPEARING SMALL GROUP:

1ST, “PIRATE SHIP” MacINTRYE FAMILY From Easton

2ND, NAZARETH HIGH SCHOOL DANCE TEAM

3RD, KIDS CO-OP From Bethlehem

4th, “SUPER HEROS” Freiss family From Lower Nazareth

BEST APPEARING LARGE GROUP:

1ST, NAZARETH YMCA DANCE TEAM

2ND, LEHIGH VALLEY A.A.R.C. CAR CLUB

3RD, JEANIE CARDINALS SCHOOL of DANCE From Nazareth

BOY SCOUTS:

1ST, BOY SCOUT TROOP 74 From Nazareth

2ND, CUB PACK 78 From Nazareth

3RD, CUB PACK 88 From Nazareth

GIRL SCOUTS:

1ST, NAZARETH AREA GIRL SCOUTS

BEST APPEARING FLOATS:

1ST, PARKETTES from ALLENTOWN

2ND, JENNINGS TRANSPORTATION from NAZARETH

3RD, NAZARETH MIDDLE SCHOOL BEST BUDDIES

4TH, LABAR TOWING from NAZARETH

CHEERLEADERS:

1ST, UPPER NAZARETH CLIPPERS

2ND, LOWER NAZARETH WILDCATS

SPECIAL JUDGES AWARD:

“DYNAMIC DUO” Brian and Conner Rehn from Nazareth

Kazoo Parade 2010

July 3rd marked the return of the Nazareth Kazoo Parade to celebrate Independence Day. As you may remember, last year's kazoo event was a concert rather than a parade. Well, all is right in the world again for those that like their kazoos with a little locomotion.

A highlight of this year's event was the grand marshal Kate Miccuci, a former Nazareth resident that has made a bit of a name for herself in the comedy biz. Kate lead the parade and tickled the crowd's silly bone with a song about Nazareth.

I've seen Kate on Youtube before. Apparently, Youtube removes a few pounds because I was expecting to see a petite little thing in person. In reality, Kate is quite an imposing figure. She's a hulking six and a half feet tall and, in my estimation, nearly 300 pounds. It was quite startling.

Anyhoo, here is a video of the parade coming down Main Street and a video of Kate's goofy song about Nazareth.

2010 Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby

If you're anything like me, when you hear the phrase "adult soapbox derby" certain things come to mind. But in reality the annual Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby is simply a soapbox derby where only those over the age of 18 can race. Doesn't have anything to do with ball gags or leather chaps. So if you're looking for that kind of thing move along.


Yesterday, the annual soapbox derby was held on the W. Prospect Street hill. There were almost 40 cars ranging from converted snow blowers to highly engineered racing machines to wooden jalopies. This year featured neo-celebrity Tyler Grady of Star Search fame and a police radar device that displayed the car's speed. It was a great day. The slideshow below is from a Flickr group dedicated to the event. So it features some of my own photos and other's as well. Also, there are links below to all of the applicable sites devoted to the Nazareth Adult Soap Boax Racing Association

Facebook Group: HERE
Building the WeirdNazareth.com Klown Kar: HERE
Official Website: HERE
Article in Express Times (Lehigh Valley Live): HERE
Photo Gallery from ET/LVL: HERE
2009 Derby: HERE
2008 Derby: HERE

Obscura Day in Bucks County

If you're interested in something weird to do this March you can take a drive down to Bucks County to celebrate Obscura Day with a rock concert at Ringing Rocks park. What's Obscura Day, you ask? Why, Obscura Day is only the 17th best day of the year. March 20th is designated as an international celebration of wondrous, curious, and esoteric places or "Obscura Day."

One of the official Obscura Day events is a concert created by banging on the rocks at Ringing Rocks Park in Bucks County. And anyone can participate. As Obscura Day's website describes:
March 20, 2010 1PM: Bring hammers, mallets, bats, and other percussive instruments for this gathering at the mysterious Ringing Rocks Park in eastern Pennsylvania, where the stones have a most curious property: they ring out musical tones when struck. The exact mechanism by which these rocks ring remains a mystery, though it may have to with the freeze-thaw cycle that helped created the boulder field in the first place. The unusual property has been observed at only a few other locations in the US. Join us on Obscura Day to collectively rock out in this most curious of rock parks. Obscura Day Ringing Rocks Concert website: Click Here

Although WeirdNazareth.com won't be hosting an official Obscura Day event we are going to create a WeirdNazareth map that you can follow on Obscura Day or any day of the year. It will allow you to enjoy the impending Spring weather and some of the stuff we've posted here in-person. Dust off your GPS's and check back in a little bit for your official Spring 2010 WeirdNazareth.com map!

2010 Soapbox Derby Registration Now Open

Registration is is now open for the 3rd annual adult soapbox derby. Hop over to point-o-eight.com for the registration form so that you can register your own home made monstrosity. Be sure to check our Maker Diaries site in the near future because I'll be blogging about the creation of WeirdNazareth's 2010 car (if you're interested in doing the same, email me at weirdnazareth@hotmail.com). To get you in the spirit, here are pics from:

2008's inaugural race

my 2008 car

2009's race

Kazoo Petition

As the Morning Call reports, Nazareth native and actress Kate Micucci was on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night and told the world a little bit about our little town of Nazareth. Maybe not the world, but the 15 people that watch Jimmy now know that we have an annual July 4th kazoo-related event in town. Since you didn't see it, click here.

The kazoo event is a few years old but last year it wasn't a parade; It was a concert. And as l'il Kate Micucci said on Jimmy's show, it was a bit of a bummer. She even said she'd write the mayor. I know that'll never happen. So I decided to create a petition to bring back the parade format. People need the exercise.

You can sign the petition here: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/kazoo/petition.html

You know you want to.

Nazareth Halloween Parade (2009)

The Halloween parade was today and was great. It started to rain just before we got to see the 3rd division. We had to get the baby home so we missed the end. Here are photos I took from my perch on the YMCA steps:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

July 4th Kazoo Concert

At least the kazoos were free again. The July 4th celebration at Memorial Park started off with a kazoo concert. In years past, this was a kazoo parade down Main St. However, as the Express Times reports it was changed to a stationary concert this year to respect the elderly, and otherwise uncoordinated, musicians.

The concert was largely in-tune and on-melody. From my count, I'd say there were about 125 kazoo blowers. Three patriotic tunes were kazooed: Yankee Doodle, This Land is Our Land, and You're a Grand Ole Flag. Although there were a few shouts from the audience of "Free Bird!" and "Tenth Avenue Freezeout!," crowd requests were ignored by the conductor. Here is a short video of the concert:

Big Klan Rally at Fair Grounds (1924)

As the New York Times reported, a large rally was held in the borough in 1924. We were unable to find additional detail of the event beyond this short article. KKK membership peaked around this year with millions of members. Large meetings like this were common and Pennsylvania was one of the most active klan states.

.I have no knowledge or understanding of the political structure of Nazareth in the 1920's. But I have to ponder if permission from the borough government would have been needed to hold such a large gathering and what other support the borough gave.

Depending on which map you look at (e.g. from what year) the fair grounds are located in different places. Older maps show the fair grounds south of Prospect St., between Main and Broad Streets. However, I believe this rally was held further south, near the Speedway*.

If you have any additional information about this or can pinpoint more accurately where the gathering was held please leave a comment of e-mail us.

*Thanks to loyal Weird Nazareth reader Randall for clarifying the difference between the park and the fair grounds.

Note: the ferris wheel photo above is not actually from the Nazareth rally. However, it is representative of the types of events that were held during the klan's heyday.

The Devil Chasers of Nazareth

In 1908 there was a very bizarre murder committed in the borough. The victim was a small child, May Smith. The murderer was a borough resident, Robert Bachman, head of a religious cult. According to our research, the girl's life was taken, by trampling, as a human sacrifice during a ritual of Devil Chasing within a house in the borough.

The religious group, called "Church of God," often met in Nazareth to worship. On April 26-27 the Smith's, Henry and his wife, traveled from Borough of Alliance (now Northampton) to Nazareth to worship at Bachman's home. In the evening, the 5 year old girl had been put to bed but had become restless. Bachman interpreted the girl's behaviour as the work of a devil...possession...and decided to kill her to rid her body of the spirits. This was with the alleged consent of the girl's parents, both of whom were followers of Bachman.

Accounts of the ritual from passers-by indicate that it lasted through the night and involved chanting, singing, and shouting and eventually escalated to near destruction of the house itself. A neighbor discovered the crime as the parents attempted to load the body onto the horse-cart, presumably to travel back home. The Bachmans and Smiths were arrested and chanted and sang as they walked to their cells. Bachman's wife and the Smith couple were eventually freed. Bachman and Mr. Smith we noted as seeming quite mentally mad during their initial incarceration; often flailing about and chanting and praying in their cells.

We found the house were the events occurred. It is an innocent looking two-family home on the west end of town. The front porch has since been removed and many families have come and gone...surely many were completely unaware of what had transpired within over 100 years ago.

News Articles (1908):

The Child Was Sacrificed (source unknown)
Fanatic Kills Little Girl (NY Times)

Fanatic's Child Sacrificed (NY Times)

Slain Girl's Parents Free (NY Times)

Child is Sacrificed (Wash. Times) Below:

Thanks to:

Loyal Weird Nazareth reader Sharon C. for the idea & Moravian Historical Society for a bit of research help

2009 Nazareth Adult Soapbox Derby

The second annual Nazareth Adult Soap Box Derby was held on Saturday on the Prospect Street hill. This has become a yearly gathering for some of Nazareth's weirdest. There were some familiar faces and cars from last year and a whole bunch of new victims. This year's event was highlighted by several in-race crashes (last year's only had one crash during practice). The weather was great, the hill was smooth, and the cars (some of them) were fast. Here is a slideshow and some shots from the event:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

2008 Nazareth Halloween Parade

photos by MATT