According to IBDA founder Lorne Nielson, the belt sander championships got their start when he and some buddies were in a tavern, talking about "sports, girls, and power tools." When the conversation turned to runaway belt sanders, the fellas wound up holding a sander race in the lumber shed of Nielson's hardware store.

Two years later, Nielson held the first organized belt sander drag races as part of his customer appreciation days. Today, the IBDA sanctions qualifying events in hardware stores all across America.

Participants compete in three categories: Stock, Modified, and "Best Decorated." Stock sanders are raced as is, "off the shelf." In the modified division, the sanders must run on 110 volts, and the belt must be stock and unaltered; beyond that, anything goes. At last year's championships, the modifications were all over the board: tiny wheelie bars; clusters of traction-boosting lead fishing weights; duct-taped energy-storing capacitors; custom-tooled steel adapters; air foils and gears from an outboard engine.

Many modified competitors convert their sanders from belt to chain drive; one replaced the sander motor with the power plant from a sidewinder grinder. Between heats, racers scurry off to fine-tune their machines, trying desperately to sand another nanosecond off their time--but don't ask for their secrets. Such questions are considered impolite and ... abrasive.

The official track is 60 feet long, with 30 feet for racing and 30 feet for deceleration. After being placed at the line by their owners, the sanders are turned loose when the official starter throws a switch hooked to both rigs. The sanders are (usually) contained between siderails and run down a plywood straightaway--the world record run, set last year in Indianapolis by Steve McKenzie with "The Grinder," is 1.52 seconds. (Maybe you saw it on Sandpaper View?) The Grinder won in a cloud of sawdust, and McKenzie will be in Point Roberts again this year to defend his title.

For those more intent on fun than speed, the "Best Decorated" category (inclusive of the stock and modified divisions) is the way to go. Last year's best included a 1945 model painted up as an old locomotive engine; a big fat carrot; a meticulously hand-painted mouse; a Titanic replica (including iceberg) so large it wouldn't fit down the track; a replica of Star Trek's U.S.S. Enterprise; and a number of stock and funny car replicas.

Still, there remains an untapped niche for Road King readers. "We get a lot of racing vehicles, and we've had fire trucks," says IBDA representative and co-founder Phil Lipton, "but we've never had a semi." Maybe you'd call a semi-shaped sander a Smoothliner?

So, perhaps some of you weekend woodworkers out there might want to show up in Point Roberts this July with the first-ever 18-wheeled sander--or at the very least, the first one with a sleeper. Who knows? You might just wind up with a coveted "Golden Sander" trophy for your dashboard. In addition to trophies, you'll be competing for cash prizes, merchandise, and, according to Phil Lipton, an all-expense-paid trip to "somewhere."

You know why they give away all those prizes, don't you?

Because you've just got to sand for something.