Great Pumpkin Race Yields a Surprising Trophy

This year we discovered a new type of Halloween competition -- the pumpkin race. The fun involves decorating a pumpkin, adding two axles and wheels and then competing in a gravity-powered race. This is much like the Cub Scout's Pinewood Derby.

The Blue Flame pumpkin racer

We signed up for the The Great SBCC Pumpkin Race (first annual) held just down the road from our house. I also lined up a friend -- who just happens to be an engineer -- to compete with me.

We got together at our place on Friday evening with the kids to decorate our pumpkins and add the wheels. Thankfully, my engineer had done a ton of thinking and brought over a bunch of parts, tools and hardware to get the pumpkins built.

As for the design, I had a moment of inspiration and created an homage to The Blue Flame, a record-setting rocket-powered vehicle that went just over 630 miles an hour at the Bonneville Salt Flats on October 23, 1970.

I had a surprising number of parts laying about the house and even a can of blue spray paint. The design came together beautifully -- as you can see from the slideshow below. We gave the car a second name "Fuego Azul" to honor my son's Spanish skills.

Unfortunately, race day dawned cold, dark and rainy. And I mean rainy. It was so wet that they actually ran the races a little early.

The Blue Flame didn't win on the track. Actually, it lost it's heat due to a misalignment that sent it off the course. (Video) Just about all the racers had the same problem. The only racer to make it to the bottom bent its axle when it hit the haybales and traveled only one inch in the final heat.

The shocker was that my design inspiration and remarkable (for me) fit and finish garnered us a trophy for best decoration and a $25 gift certificate to Jamba Juice (nice sponsorship.)

My engineer friend and I are already plotting new designs for next year and will hope that the rain will hold off so we can really see how a proper pumpkin race can go.