
During the construction phase, I encouraged the boys to do their best to make their cars look great. As such, I made myself available to assist them in the construction. We ended up with a nice variety of cars, with a weight range from 6.5 to 13.4oz(!).
Prior to the race, I had tested the starting gate with a couple of blocks with wheels and axles mounted and... well, using the line to guide the cars led to "less than desirable results. At that point, we decided to deviate somewhat from the recommendations & built a track with center divider. Here is the end result, which was "simple and effective", though there was room for improvement:

With the track set up on location, I ran my two blastcars for a final test. The only change needed was that the "sophisticated" stopper at the end (a pillow) needed some additional weight so it wouldn't be dislodged. In the test, my faster car hit the pillow so hard that it lifted a corner, allowing the slower car to slide under the pillow & make its merry way into the parking lot.
At any rate, we had a photo shoot of all the cars prior to the race:






After the photo shoot, the crowds made their way to vote for their favorites...


And once the votes were cast, the races began! We opted to do an elimination format, based on weight classes. This led to the first faceoff (and the only one I have a pic of right now):

The fastest car was "The Cole Machine", which would be due to it being the lightest (6.5oz) and having a long wheelbase.
The fan favorite was given to the three that had the highest number of votes. In order, they were "Black Beauty", "Dark Ray" and "the Jokermobile".
All in all, the boys had a lot of fun and a couple of the boys who opted out of the event said they wished they had participated. So here's hoping for an even better event next year!
-Rob