Meet your Maker: Chris Hunter

“As soon as basketball season is over, if I lived somewhere else, there would be this drought until summertime comes. I love how The Derby transitions me right into summer.”

How did you get started as a maker?

I’m from Louisville, pretty close to Churchill Downs, on Southern Parkway. I love The Derby and everything it does for Louisville. Ever since I could drive, I’ve gone to Thunder Over Louisville every year. We go pretty early and camp out. There are so many activities that, even if you live here, you don’t know about all of them. Growing up, the winner of the Bed Race was always Ford and it was always in the paper. The last time Ford ran [in 2009], they came in second place, so they were the ones to beat for the longest time. The team that won first place the last few years is called Curtain Call Photo Booth. Last year, they tore through the new course at the KFC Yum! Center. And the previous year, they set a course record in Broadbent Arena. They’re pretty impressive. And now they’re the ones to beat.

For almost seven years, I have been a design engineer for GE. I work generally on refrigerators, specifically on the ice and water systems. Four years ago, I joined GE’s Stock Yards Bank Great Bed Races team. I’m a competitive person and into sports, so it sounded like a lot of fun. The team I’m on is kind of an engineering team. Engineers are not necessarily the most social of people, and it’s sometimes difficult to get people to come and try out. Even though we placed third my first year of racing, at tryouts the next year, the only people who showed up were my co-op intern, our Edison (what new hires at GE are called), and me. So I accepted the role of team manager and organizer for the past three years. Last year, we actually had three teams. And this year we’re going to have four teams. That’s probably a record for number of teams for a single company. Joining us are a supplier quality group team and an IT team. Besides designing and running, my role involves sending out mass emails across the GE Appliance Park looking for participants and going to the various groups at GE to raise the funding for the entry fees. For example, if you’re a GE associate who is new to Louisville, there is a group called LouNet that organizes events to help you get accustomed to town. They submit budgets each year for all their events, and we get money from them. This year, we got four or five groups to contribute a little bit each to help fund our racing teams.

Do you design and build a new bed each year for the race, or make modifications to the ones you built previously?

Two years ago, we built a bed we call the green bed and we’ve used it ever since. It’s an aluminum frame bed that was built many years ago and found in the back of one of our factories, covered in dust. The whole top of the bed is covered in a really nice canvas with American flag stitching on it. Two years ago, we actually came in second place with that bed. Then they moved to the KFC Yum! Center and it was a disaster. The track is the same distance, but you do two laps instead of one, with tighter turns and two crossovers. Our team actually won the Cone Eater award last year for hitting the most cones out of everybody. So we have some improvements to make and we’re going to redesign the green bed this year.

What are some of your lessons learned from racing last year?

Even though there’s no minimum weight limit, you don’t want it to be so light that the bed will whip out on the turn. Our bed is really light and once you get going at full speed, the runners are racing just to keep up with it. So we need to move the center of gravity forward, toward the front of the tires. We got some pictures of last year’s run and, in most of them, our front wheels are slightly off of the ground. Our driver may be steering one way and the tires are pointing that way, but we’re definitely going the other way. Having four guys trying to steer the bed while running full speed doesn’t work. Our steering is also really sensitive, so we do a lot of shimmying back and forth. We hope to fix that.

Are there tryouts for the racing team? Do you practice before the race?

The racing team is made up of four people who push the bed and one person who steers. We usually have both a fun team and a competition team. So the tryouts are really for the competitive team and occur a month and a half before the race. It’s a 200-yard dash. The people with the four best times are the pushers. We’ve debated making the tryout a 200-yard dash while you push a cart/bed, because sometimes it’s more about strength than speed. However, because we haven’t had enough people try out, we can’t really take it too far.

We practice in the parking lot about twice a week. It’s not the best surface to practice on because the surface we actually race on is polished concrete and is really slick. It’s nothing like the gravel and pavement on the parking lot. We have so many warehouses at GE, so I’m going to try to get inside for practice. Hopefully, we’ll get permission.

Any words of encouragement for people who may be interested in participating?

I think the first time you do it, don’t think of it in terms of winning or losing, but think of it as a fun thing to try and go from there. Every year, there are beds that barely get past the starting line because the wheels are falling off. But the teams are laughing the whole way as they’re dragging the bed around the course. And the crowd is cheering them on. And it’s not just the race – it’s an all day event. There is a parade, tailgating at the dormitory area, and a pajama party where they do the heat drawing. Teams often dress up. For instance, one team last year dressed up like the little guys from “Despicable Me” and there were 10 or 15 of them dancing in the streets. The facilities at the KFC Yum! Center could definitely hold more fans. And even if you don’t end up racing this year, it’s a lot of fun to attend.

 

–Grace Simrall

This year’s Stock Yards Bank Kentucky Derby Festival Great Bed Races will take place on Monday, April 30 at the KFC Yum! Center. The dormitory area opens at 11:30 a.m. for tailgating, the parade begins at 6:15 p.m., and the race should begin at 7 p.m. For more information, visit kdf.org.

Bio:
Engineer. Annual Thunder Over Louisville attendee. miniMarathon Runner. Derby Bed Racer.

Title:
Refrigeration design engineer, GE Appliances

Age:
28

Location:
South End

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