Isabelle Tucey let out a scream as her soap box derby racecar zipped down  Barrington Drive Saturday.

Tucey was one of a handful of youngsters taking part in the annual North Whidbey Sunrise Rotary Challenge Series Gravity Races.

Was the screech one of fright or excitement?

“My eyes were about to fall out,” Tucey said. “We were going too fast.”

Apparently unfazed that she might go blind, the 8-year-old hustled back in line for another glide down the street.

Each car carried two kids, the driver and a passenger with special needs.

Tucey’s family was introduced to the race when her older brother, Garrett Stahl, now 18, volunteered to be a driver seven or eight years ago, according to this mother, Lori Stahl.

“Several kids in Garrett’s scout troop had down syndrome or were autistic, so he decided to drive because they trusted him,” Lori Stahl said.

Jennifer Burlington first brought her children, Connor, 12, and Rylee, 10, for a ride five years ago.

She suggested to Connor that he might be getting a little old for the event, and that received an emphatic “No.”

“They look forward to it every year,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun.”

For Ely Adam, it’s a family affair.

“It’s really neat what they have going on here,” he said.

All five of his children (Faith, 12; Caleb, 10; Jakob, 8; Grace, 5; and Isaiah, 3) partipated, with the oldest two serving as drivers.

Caleb took the wheel Saturday for the first time.

“I like driving better,” he said. “I like being in control.”

Jakob, however, said he enjoys riding along: “You can sorta relax.”

For Kristen Smith, her children came as spectators and ended up participants.

Smith saw the sign on Midway Boulevard that advertised the race and thought it would be a good event for her sons, Noah, 11, and Brayden, 8, to watch.

They were expecting to see a competitive event.

“I thought it would a race for kids who built their own cars,” she said, referencing the traditional Soap Box Derby program that annually features races throughout the United States.

When they found out the format of the Challenge Series, Noah signed up to be one of the drivers, took several practice runs, and then helped ferry kids, including his brother, who was too young to drive, down Barrington.

Puget Power (now Puget Sound Energy) started the program about 30 years ago, and employee Kit Maret has helped since 1987 when she worked in Olympia, where the cars were originally stored.

When she transferred to the island in 1991, she continued with the program out of the Oak Harbor office. Puget Power recruited other service organizations to help out, and one of those, the North Whidbey Sunrise Rotary, eventually took over primary sponsorship in 1997.

“My son (Daniel) was the first driver to test the hill in Olympia,” she said. “They pulled him out of school on a Monday morning for a test run. He was only 7 then; now he is 35.”

Looking around and noting all the adult volunteers, she said, “There are kind of a lot of big kids here today.”

A lot of big kids, a bushel of smiles, a few screams and no loose eyeballs.