Ladies and the General Lee
Garage Headquarters: Atlanta, GA
Driver: Tommy Swofford
Mechanics: Natalie Fry, Andre Freitas, OZ, Rachel Colley
Nuts and Bolts:
When it comes to Red Bull competitions, Natalie Fry is an all-around talent. In 2006, she co-created a statue of Buddha that won Atlanta’s Red Bull Art of Can competition. And only a week after returning from her Grand Prize trip of attending the fabulous Art Basel event in Switzerland, a jet-lagged but undaunted Natalie took the controls of a flying machine at Red Bull Flugtag in Nashville and soared a full sixty feet – an impressive distance for a crazy, human-powered contraption. Now she’s getting ready for the new adventure of competing in the Red Bull Soapbox Race, and she’s got a secret weapon: Daisy Dukes.
“The inspiration is the South, and nothing says Southern more than fine-looking ladies and ‘The Dukes of Hazzard,’” says team captain Tommy Swofford, referring to the rollicking TV show that burned itself into the American consciousness (including, evidently, his own) over the course of seven silly seasons. Tommy was Natalie’s teammate in the Flugtag effort, and both work as bartenders in Atlanta. (Tommy is also in his ninth year at Georgia State, but that’s another story…) Joining them on Tenth Street will be their friend John Fragulis, a plumber who is new to the insanity of these kinds of contests. The teammates are assembling their replica of the iconic “General Lee” car at AFX Studios, an art services company in Marietta that generously offered the use of warehouse space for their build. Tommy, who will drive the General Lee, proclaims that spectators should “prepare to have their minds blown” on August 29; although given that in his lifetime he has been hit by no fewer than three cars, plus a Gwinnett County Transit bus, you’ve got to wonder whose mind is really at risk – especially when the enthusiastic driver advises, “Listen for the sonic boom!”
