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Lexi Crosbie was five days old when he went to his first banger competition. The 14-year-old said: “I grew up in the arena. When he was nine, his racing father gave him a chance in Micro F2s, the big league, and Crosbie has been racing ever since. “You’re so full of adrenaline,” he says of motorsport. I feel better than ever.
This month, Crosbie took to his Cornish track, United Downs Raceway (also known as St Day), for some action. The Kneebone Cadillac, Carl Grose’s raucous drama about a racing driver and his family, is set and performed on a railroad. For Crosbie, it was his first theater performance. He said: “I was very happy. “My whole family did.” Director Kyla Goodey likes to see how many athletes have come in, while acting is not part of their regular lives. He said: “It has been to unite countries. “This is what we want.”
Banger competition is all about speed and damage. Standard cars are raced, stripped and protected in “nudge and spin” races, where the interaction is limited but still fun. When a car collides, the car is destroyed but the driver is safe. Leeta Rawling-Aldridge, 27, a home care worker, agrees: “The crowd is there because of these accidents. She has run for the past five years with her brother at St Day, where their father drove for three decades. She said: “I’ve never been scared. In recent months, he broke his shoulder and broke his foot, but “I’m just thinking about getting back out there”.
Built on a former tin mine and having survived the threat of regeneration, St Day is the center of life for Cornwall’s runners, especially since many other tracks have been closed. “You get to a meeting and it’s like you have the whole family there,” says Crosbie. Grose, who grew up enjoying the screaming St Day tires on the bank holiday, wants to take over the local community. Beginning life as a radio play in 2011, The Kneebone Cadillac was transferred to Plymouth Theater Royal, where it has been. was launched in 2018.
Grose’s high-octane drama follows determined young athlete Maddy Kneebone on a harrowing journey involving the death of her coddled father, an heirloom Cadillac and a golden secret. “You just can’t stop laughing,” says one of the tournament’s promoters, Crispen Rosevear. In 2024, he canceled his schedule so that Wildworks, Goodey’s company, could produce the show. Two years later, The Kneebone Cadillac is back.
This is not a way to make money. “I do it for the love of the game,” Rosevear says. He fondly describes United Downs as “the tough end of the race” because “it means it’s possible for all”. The world of racing seems to operate in a generous way: “If something goes wrong,” says Crosbie, “you always have someone to help you fix it.”
While athletes are looking for theaters, theater producers are falling for the sport. “It’s mind-boggling,” Goodey said. “Everything is risk assessment in the stadium, and here I see a 10-car pile-up, and a girl gets out of the middle of it.”
Although the race is still dominated by men, the picture is changing. “When I first started,” says Crosbie, “a lot of girls were very skeptical, like they were out there to block. Caitlin Emery, whose parents and grandparents also ran, has been doing this for five years and has won several races. The 19-year-old said: “I’m still scared because I didn’t know what was going to happen.” But rumors are just hearsay. Fighting against the same sex, he has dipped his toe into the world’s most competitive racing, an extreme group that allows fighting. He said: “It is very dangerous.” “A very hard hit.”
All drivers agree on the tendency to rush. “If the banger competition grabs you, you’re hooked,” says Rosevear. “It becomes a way of life.” Kerry Birch is in his second year of racing, when he meets a friend, a 23-year-old runner whose father’s ashes are scattered on the St Day route. “They put me in the car and that was it,” he says. “It just seemed like fun, as well as crazy. She’s a mom to four girls, including a seven-year-old who’s worried about Birch getting hurt and wanting to go to the Micro F2s. “We’re just trying to raise money for her to go there,” says Birch.
Like acting, running is an expensive sport. Even at the top of the game, drivers will spend more money than they can win. “I’m in a hurry,” says Rosevear. “You can’t buy this kind of happiness.” Goodey was adamant that the show should not leave those who spoke and for them. With tickets starting at £1, the increased prices are in line with the principle of generosity that surrounds the railway: if you have a spare part, you give; if someone needs help, you go up. With puppets and music and a sunset behind the tracks, The Kneebone Cadillac works to recreate some of this magic. “I hope this show captures the spirit of going to the Raceway,” says Grose. “Disturbing and fun and a little scary.”
