FREDERICK — As Jaeden Tucker came back up the track after his championship race Saturday at the East Patrick Street Park and Ride, the smile on his face told the story.
   The 8-year-old in the yellow car with a “Sonic the Hedgehog” decal was only in his third day of soap box racing, yet he won himself a trip to Akron, Ohio, for the All-American Soap Box Derby Championship at Derby Downs on July 30.
   “See my goosebumps? My hair’s standing on end,” his mother, Christi, said.
   Jaeden won the Stock division. He will be joined in Akron by Andrew Rentzel and Chris Hagan, who won the Super Stock and Masters divisions, respectively.
   Unlike Jaeden, however, Andrew and Chris have been there before. Andrew, 15, will be making his third trip, while Chris, 16, will be appearing in his fifth.
   While these three will be moving on, every kid left with something Saturday.
   “We have no losers here,” said Sabrina Hagan, wife of derby director Jim Hagan. “Each kid will end up with at least a participant trophy.”
   Runners-up received Memorex boom boxes, while the rest of the 28 racers entered a random drawing for skateboards, kites, volleyballs, NASCAR wall clocks and other prizes.
   “I don’t know anybody else that does that, just me and my husband. We do it for the kids,” Ms. Hagan said.
   Their son, Chris, took one of the day’s biggest prizes. His first place trophy was around three feet tall, a fact that racers Dorie Triplett, 10, and Kristin Jones, 11, found very interesting.
   “This is probably taller than my brother,” Kristin said.
   The kids were all sweating, and some ended up sunburned on a hot day that lasted far longer than planned. The derby’s start was delayed by faulty timers that took several hours to fix. But the sweat-drenched families toughed it out. The Tucker family was there for over eight hours.
   “It’s been a long day, but we had a good time, I think,” Mr. Hagan said at the event’s conclusion.
   Mr. Hagan resurrected the Frederick derby in 2002 after a 40-year hiatus. Today’s derby is a far cry from the event of four decades ago. The competitors are much more evenly matched.
   Rather than build cars from scratch, families now purchase soap box kits, producing nearly carbon-copy cars, save painting and decals.
   Racing methods have changed as well. Before each race, drivers swap two random wheels. After one run down the track, drivers swap all four wheels and change lanes for a second trip down.
   “It takes one lane being faster out of the picture and it takes one set of wheels being faster out of the picture,” Mr. Hagan said.
   With the playing field so leveled, Saturday’s racers had to rely on weight placement and their steering skills.
   The cars were set in motion by the crack of the ramp gates hitting the blacktop, at the push of a Jeopardy-like buzzer by Chairman of Regional Directors George Rodenbaugh. Once rolling, the cars traveled down two conemarked lanes, reaching speeds of 23 to 25 mph, Mr. Hagan estimated.
   A differential timer was placed at the end of the 600-foot track, shooting a beam across both lanes. The timer started when the first racer crossed the finish line and ended with the second, thus compiling differential times for each heat.
   Ah yes, heat. The only thing that wasn’t heated Saturday were the competitors. While many races were determined by thousandths of a second, the racers, and more importantly their parents, remained cool.
   “It’s pretty cool, all the kids saying ‘good game,’ ‘good race,’ ‘good luck.’ They all seem to be good sports. I haven’t seen any crying or screaming under the age of four,” Ms. Tucker said.
   “It’s the best type of family thing around,” said Mr. Rodenbaugh’s wife, Phyllis.
   One family in particular, the Rentzels, thoroughly enjoyed their derby experience. Andrew and sister Evie finished a respective first and second in the Super Stock division, Andrew racing in an American flag-painted car.
   The car’s red, white and blue exterior may have been slick, but the inside decoration held more meaning for the family.
   “We took letters that spell out ‘God’s speed’ and taped them to the steering unit,” his mother Kay said. “My son’s a Christian, and it’s just one small mission.”
   Around the same time they discovered the derby, the Rentzel family learned that Andrew had a learning disability. The derby, his mother said, has driven up Andrew’s self-confidence.
   “It’s one of those things that helped bring this whole new kid back to us,” Ms. Rentzel said.
   Who knew cars rolling down a hill could mean so much?