During The Race

You are free to run your event however you would like but this is the way that we usually do things and we find that this way usually works the best. 

The times here are estimates. Don’t worry, we’re flexible.

6:00 – Krayola Express arrives to begin setting up the track.

Usually we’ll select one side of the room to set up the track, this makes crowd control easier.

Everything will be roped off to prevent accidents and keep equipment and people safe. (We’ll bring everything for that.)

We’ll borrow a long table (provided by the host facility) to act as a place to store and line up all of the cars that have been checked in. 

We will also set up a projector and a screen (brought by us). This is where we’ll show the ongoing race results during the event.

6:45 – Final Preparations

We’ll give the equipment a quick test to make sure that everything is working properly and then we can start accepting cars.

If you’ve already checked in your cars then good for you! We will use this time to cross check them against the names that you’ve given us ahead of time and we’ll line them up and make sure they’re ready to go.

7:00 – The Event Starts

Racers check in their cars by handing them to the officials who check the cars for rules compliance and weight restrictions. Cars that pass inspection are placed on the staging table. We’ll line the cars up as they’re checked in. We’ll also make sure that every car has been assigned a number so that we can make sure we know whose car is whose. If you haven’t provided numbers ahead of time, we’ll do it for you at this time.

Cars Are All Checked In

Usually whomever is in charge of the event will take care of any opening business and then hand things over to Steve.

Steve will then say a few words to the crowd to get them excited, explain a few rules of conduct, and make them aware of how the event will proceed.

As part of that intro, Steve will usually say a few words about sportsmanship and generally do his best to ensure that a good time will be had by all.

The Race Begins

We usually race all the cars in individual heats, organized by den or age group. We also usually have an “Open Heat” for any unofficial cars; cars that aren’t eligible to compete.

The first three cars are placed on the track and raced. The race times are automatically entered into the computer and our custom software displays the racers on the screen along with their times and average speed. The cars are then rotated for the next race. The first car is rotated out, the other two are shifted over one lane, and a fourth car is rotated in. In this way, each racer races exactly once in each lane and their average time indicates their performance in the heat. If there are fifteen cars in a heat then the heat will take only fifteen races to complete. Having a fully automated race system allows us to run more than one heat a minute which means that the heats can go very quickly. Of course we can go at a more leisurely pace if there’s no rush.

During the race, Steve will usually provide some commentary to keep things fun and interesting. He thinks he’s funnier than he is but the kids usually enjoy it anyway.

Once all of the preliminary heats have been run, we will usually select the top three fastest cars from each heat to run in a championship heat to determine first, second, and third place. While not strictly necessary (since we have average times from the preliminary heats), we find that this is an exciting part of the evening because having the fastest cars race against each other makes for some very competitive races.

Meanwhile, some leaders may have been carefully looking over the cars on the staging table to determine other award categories such as “fastest looking car”, “best paint job”, “most realistic car”, and so on.

7:45 – The race over. It’s time to give out awards.

This is your job. We don’t provide awards and we don’t tell you how to give them.

Usually a group will award a special prize to the three fastest cars (1st, 2nd, and 3rd place) and other awards to each of the other cars (so that no one feels left out). Sometimes it’s almost as rewarding for a racer to be told that his car looks the coolest as it is to be told it’s the fastest.

One idea that we think works very well is to have a prize table with a selection of small prizes (candy works really well) and then call each racer up to receive their award, beginning with the slowest car and ending with the fastest, and allow them to choose one of the prizes from the prize table. This way the racer with the slowest car gets first pick of the candy.

As each racer receives their recognition their car is returned to them and proudly displayed to the crowd.

8:00 – The event’s over. Time to pack it up.

We’ll handle tearing down the track and loading it in our van. You get to run a broom over the room.

If we haven’t yet received a check from you, this would be a good time to see that we get it. (We also except PayPal or Venmo. Just ask.)

8:15 – We’re done.

After we arrive home, we’ll convert the race results into a PDF file and email it to you so you can display it proudly on your organization’s bulletin board.