Awana Grand Prix

Our boys go to Awana every Wednesday, and this past Saturday, they had a special event where kids (or more like their parents) make little wooden race cars to race down a metal ramp. It is a competition to see who can make either the fastest or the prettiest car. We all start with a plain block of wood, four axles, and four plastic tires. I was a little hesitant to enter the race, as I am not very good with wood working. Luckily, they had a special wood shop day where they have people who knows how to use a band saw help you cut your car to shape. The boys chose a shape that they liked based on some templates they have. Now that we have the basic shape, we can paint the cars and try to do different things to make them race faster. There are certain rules that we all had to adhere to: the car cannot be over 5 oz, it must be 7" or shorter, we must use the stock axles and wheels, etc.. Since this is our first time racing, I told the boys there's a good chance we will not win, but I will try my best to make the cars as fast as possible.

The day of the big race came. We arrived to Awana at 8:30am and we saw a lot of different cars in different sizes, colors, and shapes. They divided the race into three different "divisions": K to 1st grade, 2nd to 3rd, and 4th to 5th. Each division probably had around 20 cars, and out of those cars, they will pick a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner for speed, and a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winner on design. Each car will race four times, each time in a different lane (so to prevent any lane advantage), and the four finish times will be averaged out to some final score. The odds were against us, as ours was definitely not the prettiest, and I only did a few things that I know to make our cars fast. Again, I told the boys that even if we don't win, it's OK, because we're having fun watching the race.

They started with the K to 1st grade division, and J. got called to the tracks. We placed the car on top of the ramp and waited for the other three cars to do the same. When everyone was ready, they pulled the level, and whoosh! Our car crossed the finish line the quickest! Wow!! Well, that was just one race. We need to do it three more times, and there are 20 other cars to compete against, so let's not get too excited here. A few other races came and went, and then it's our turn again. Whoosh! We're first again! That was pretty cool. Let's see what happens with the third and fourth race. Whoosh, whoosh!! First again!! At the end of each race, I noted our speed, which was read to us after the cars crossed the finish line. Our top speed was 197.6 MPH! Holy smokes! They calculated all the scores for this division, and they announced the winners. First place: Joshua Mak!! Wow, we won, we won!! We couldn't believe it! It was quite amazing!




Now, the next division was up, which was 1st and 2nd grade, in which C. was a part of. The parents in this division were more experienced, so it might be a harder race. We raced Caleb's car down the first time, and whoosh! First place! Second time, first place again! We finished the third and fourth race, and we won first place in those as well, but we're not all cleared yet. There was this one other car that raced in between our races and I noted his speed was about the same as ours. In fact, one of his runs was actually faster than any four of our runs. This was going to be a close call. I prepared Caleb by telling him that it's OK if we won second, because we'll still get a trophy. They tallied up all the scores. And the first place winner was... Caleb Mak!! We cannot believe it!! We won first place in both divisions!! Amazing! All three boys were ecstatic! We definitely want to race again next year, and there are a few more tricks that I think we can do to make our cars even faster. (Sorry, can't share the secrets here, as our competition might be reading this now!)