The Great Race

If these dads look tired to you, it’s probably because they’d been up all night for several consecutive nights building and finishing AWANA race cars for their kids.  The annual AWANA race is quite the anticipated event around our church, and the dads really go all out.  At least our resident dad does, and given the amazing cars that raced, I’m pretty convinced the other dads are just as obsessed with engineering that perfect speedy car that fits the creative desires of their offspring.

At the race this year were several wonderful traditional race cars in all shapes, trucks, vans, a puppy car on wheels, and my personal favorite:  a van designed with clear walls to hold one little boy’s pet hamster as it zoomed down the track.  That’s right folks:  a real live hamster.  It’s a good thing PETA was not invited.  The hamster was definitely a crowd pleaser, and did manage to win one of its heats.  You can see that cute little fur ball, probably about ready to suffer from cardiac arrest, huddled inside the white vehicle on this picture:

As for the kidlets, they had their own ideas about slightly less than conventional racing vehicles this year as well.  Mr. SP chose a somewhat conventional bullet rocket seen here in the front row of the parking lot at the race.  There was a lot of etching and careful painting involved, and it zipped along at quite a nice pace.  .

YaYa had visions of a bathtub on wheels, which also zoomed along quite nicely.  The bathtub ended up racing four times, and did much better when the people at the start line faced the tub in the right way (some weight distribution was involved in engineering).  So, remember, friends, if you ever plan on racing in a bathtub, make sure it’s facing forward before you start.  You can’t see it all that well, but it’s the tall white vehicle with blue “water” splashes on the sides in this image:

Here’s YaYa watching the tub’s descent down the track.  A lot of the races were extremely close.  The line judges were very grateful for a digital timer on the track.

As you can see there was a lot of excitement and suspense involved.

The Banana also had an unofficial car that raced in the sibling heat.  She won’t be able to officially race until next year.  In true Banana fashion, she raced a pink and purple flipflop car, that was amazingly fast.  In fact, after everything was said and done, Dr. Peds convinced the race workers to do a heat with just YaYa, Mr. SP and The Banana, and The Banana smoked her brother and sister and another car that was zipping down.  Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the amazing shoe because the top toe strap broke the next day, and I didn’t manage to get a picture of it at the race because Mr. Trouble on Two Feet was being troublesome.

Speaking of Mr. Trouble on Two Feet, until he got tired and hungry, he was having the time of his life watching all the cars zoom down the track, and signing “car” and “go” and squealing during each race.