IN THIS FEATURE The calm before the storm Today please, Matthew And we're off... Its all down to the push To victory, gentlemen

Saturday afternoon, Knebworth Park, Stevenage. Sitting close to the surprisingly high launch ramp of the Red Bull Soap Box Race, 4Car's dinky racer twinkles harmlessly in the sunlight. Mechanics Tom, Andy and I mingle with our fellow competitors. To our left, a giant wedge of cheese and a large microphone. To our right, an enormous pair of knockers and pre-event favourites, DragStars. A few blokes come wandering down the assembled line of racers, verbally evaluating the entries.

'...dunno, nope, ooh maybe...' and they pause by our diminutive shiner. I want to think that they're impressed and are waging on winning credentials, but a natter reveals that they just reckon it has half-a-chance of reaching the bottom without disaster. Seems that they've laid-out the soap box race course and are the ones responsible for the decision to double the start-ramp's height, and then experienced a few down-hilling problems themselves: they tested two professionally built karts, and stacked them both. Not encouraging.

Just don't put any flippin' fingerprints on it...

Saturday is the calm before the storm. Scrutineering, practice and party. The scrutineering process is, umm, well let's call it relaxed, the safety-onus is on the teams themselves. 'Well engineered,' comments the scrutineer. If only he knew. The levels of finish on these karts varies wildly, from badly nailed together planks of wood, to exquisitely cut and welded fine steel. Ours is somewhere in the middle, but that shining bodywork and the machine's lightness lends it an air of competence. Andy catches race-day commentator and ITV F1's man in the pits Ted Kravitz taking a sneaky peek later on Saturday, who dubs it 'slick.' Which is nice.