Portland has an extinct volcano sitting right in the middle of the city, so naturally, at some point a group of grown men decided the appropriate thing to do with it was build homemade cars and race them down the side.

Honestly, it would almost be stranger if this hadn't happened in Portland.

This Saturday, August 15, the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby returns to Mt. Tabor Park for its 27th anniversary, bringing 42 teams and some of the strangest gravity-powered vehicles you are likely to see anywhere in Oregon. The race runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., admission is completely free, and organizers say somewhere between 7,000 and 10,000 spectators typically fill the slopes of the park to watch.

Calling all of the entries "cars" is admittedly generous.

Some are sleek machines that look as if somebody spent a year obsessing over bearings, aerodynamics and exactly how much speed can be squeezed out of gravity. Others look more like an art-school project escaped from the studio, found a set of wheels and developed a death wish.

That is very much the point.

The derby divides its creations between art and engineering, but regardless of how seriously a team approaches the build, everything ultimately has to survive the same basic test: getting from the top of Mt. Tabor to the bottom using gravity.

And they can move.

According to derby organizers, homemade racers can reach speeds of around 50 mph on the course. The current track record belongs to Justin James of Team Rusty Rocket, who completed the run in 71.10 seconds in 2016.

Fifty miles per hour already feels reasonably fast inside an actual automobile. It feels considerably more important when the vehicle flying past you appears to have been assembled in somebody's garage and may resemble an animal, household appliance, beer-related contraption or some other object that was never intended to travel down a mountain.

It Started With Six Guys in 1997

The story of how the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby came to exist is almost as Portland as the event itself.

According to the derby's official history, Paul Zenk was visiting San Francisco's Bernal Heights in 1994 when he stumbled across a gravity-powered race there. Zenk was immediately hooked by the spectacle of homemade machines charging down the hill.

Two years later, he was back in Portland sitting inside the Horse Brass Pub with Eric Foren when the obvious question came up: Why weren't they doing something like that here?

The answer to the second question, where they could possibly hold such a race, was practically sitting outside waiting for them.

Mt. Tabor.

Zenk and Foren spent the following year putting the idea together. Then, during the summer of 1997, six men hauled their homemade creations to the top of Mt. Tabor and raced them down the mountain.

The Portland Adult Soapbox Derby was born.

Nearly three decades later, those six racers have become 42 teams, up to 200 race-day volunteers and thousands of spectators spread across the mountain.

And Yes, Mt. Tabor Really Is a Volcano

The volcano part isn't a Portland exaggeration, either.

Mt. Tabor Park sits on an extinct volcanic cinder cone in Southeast Portland. The 176-acre park is one of the city's most recognizable green spaces, filled with forested trails, reservoirs, steep hills and views across Portland.

Most days, people come here to walk beneath the trees, climb toward the summit, exercise, picnic or simply get away from the city without actually leaving it.

On derby day, things get considerably louder.

Mt. Tabor's winding roads and elevation happen to provide exactly what a soapbox racer needs: gravity, pavement and enough downhill momentum to turn somebody's strange garage invention into a legitimately fast vehicle.

There are no engines providing the fun. These machines are built around gravity, engineering, creativity and the deeply held belief that whatever somebody has constructed will hopefully continue steering and braking once it begins moving very quickly downhill.

Crashes are part of the spectacle, although organizers take safety seriously. Spectators are repeatedly reminded to pay attention to course marshals and flaggers and to move immediately when volunteers call for the track to be cleared. Organizers recommend remaining at least 10 feet back from the racecourse.

For Some People, This Became Much More Than a Race

It's easy to look at the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby and see only the absurdity, and there is certainly plenty of that.

But the reason an event like this survives for decades usually has less to do with wheels and gravity than with the people who keep showing up.

Current derby president David Paulsen has one of the most remarkable stories connected to the event.

Paulsen says he arrived in Portland on his 17th birthday in 1999 after running away from foster care in Idaho. He was homeless as a teenager and living at Bridge House on Hawthorne when he happened across the Soapbox Derby.

Something clicked.

"I knew I had found my people," Paulsen recalls in his biography on the derby's website.

He kept coming back. First as a spectator, then as a racer, then as somebody helping with the event. Today, he serves as president and a board member of the nonprofit organization behind the derby, where he has focused on scholarship teams and making the event sustainable and accessible to the broader community.

That story says something important about what this strange Portland tradition became.

People came for the homemade cars, crashes and spectacle, but somewhere along the way they also created a community.

The organization is volunteer-run, and derby organizers say the event costs roughly $50,000 to produce each year. Sponsorships and donations allow spectators to continue attending for free. Volunteers also participate in brush clearing at Mt. Tabor before the event and return afterward to clean up the park.

So yes, you can come to Mt. Tabor Saturday to watch adults make highly questionable decisions involving gravity.

But take a minute to look beyond the cars.

Look at the people pushing them toward the starting line. Look at the teams that have spent months building something together. Look at the volunteers lining the course, the families covering the hillside and the longtime racers who have been coming back year after year.

What began with six guys and a bizarre idea in 1997 became something thousands of Portlanders now consider part of summer.

They just kept making room for more people.

Saturday, they'll do it again.

If You Go

The Portland Adult Soapbox Derby takes place Saturday, August 15, 2026, at Mt. Tabor Park, near SE 60th Avenue and SE Salmon Street in Portland. Racing runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and admission is free.

For spectators, organizers recommend Blood Alley, located around the middle of the mountain, as the largest and best overall viewing area. There are grassy areas where people can set up chairs or blankets, along with food and beverage vendors. If you want a closer look at the racers themselves, head toward The Pits near the top of the course, where teams and their creations gather around the starting area. The bottom of the course is another good option if you want to watch the racers fly across the finish.

Parking around Mt. Tabor is limited, and the mountain will be closed to through traffic during the event. Organizers strongly encourage people to walk, bike, use public transit or take a rideshare whenever possible.

And although Mt. Tabor is normally a perfectly reasonable place to bring a dog, derby organizers strongly recommend leaving pets at home because of the crowds, noise and fast-moving racers.

Basically, bring a chair, keep your eyes on the track, listen to the course marshals and prepare to watch 42 homemade machines find out exactly how much trouble gravity can create on an extinct Portland volcano.

Photo Credit: A huge thank-you to Jason DeSomer of Whatever.Photo for documenting the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby over the years and for the incredible images featured in this article. His work captures the speed, creativity, chaos, and community that make this Mt. Tabor tradition so unique.