Teams

Tree Huggers

Garage Headquarters: Campbell, CA

Driver: Phillip Sheffield

Mechanics: John Alldredge, Dan Haber, Rory Loeb

Nuts and Bolts:

John Alldredge, Dan Haber, Rory Loeb, and Philip Sheffield have been friends since they were teenagers. They’re all in their mid-twenties now and claim to be “just one big dysfunctional group” – but last year they were functional enough to drive seventeen hours from Campbell, California, to compete at the Red Bull Soapbox Race in Seattle. “We finished somewhere between first and last with a ‘Back to the Future’ theme,” relates Rory. “We wanted to do something that wasn’t movie related this time around, and the struggles between liberals and conserva…I mean tree huggers and lumberjacks…is relevant today. So we’re making something clever from that.”

This is one car that will have more than junk in its trunk. Team Tree Huggers will present a soapbox parody of the ongoing battles between the conservationists who want to save the trees and the folks who stand to make money from them. The teammates aren’t in the tree business themselves – Rory and Philip are graphic designers, Dan is a mechanical engineering student, and John is a police officer – but they’re usually in the business of having fun, like competing in San Francisco’s Bay to Breakers footrace as pirates, a chain gang, and Mexican wrestlers. “San Francisco could be a tough competition as it’s teeming with artistic and technical talent,” says Rory, who, as team captain, is keen on assessing the field. “We expect to put up a damn good passive aggressive fight, though!”