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Vegetables, not vehicles, take to the track in kid-friendly event
Photo by James Nix
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Published: June 29, 2009
KANNAPOLIS — It's one thing to race cars in the summertime. It is an altogether different thing to race vegetables.
But that is exactly what children in Kannapolis did Thursday night — create, design and decorate their own race cars made out of zucchini and other vegetables.
And they got to race them, too.
The Zucchini 500 had its first running in the Village, with Bobby Waltrip, of the Waltrip racing family, calling the heats.
Children and their parents came up with interesting designs in a showcase of creativity.
Kennedy Kirkman, 7, of Kannapolis, won first place in the most school spirit for the under-9 age bracket.
She proudly displayed her car after she won. Her grandfather, Ron Womack, of Salisbury, helped her construct it.
"My grandpa bought a model car, and we took it apart," she said.
Using a zucchini for the body, they attached the wheels from the model car and used other veggies as accents features — red peppers for the tail lights, tomatoes for headlights and a blueberry for a hood ornament.
Kirkman even made a little driver out of squash and covered the whole car with N.C. State stickers.
The basics of a zucchini car are simple, said Louis Wojciechowski, a volunteer with the N.C. State Plants for Human Health. Take a zucchini or squash, attach it to a frame with wheels and decorate it.
The veggie cars came in all different shapes and sizes, some with roller-skate wheels to wheels made from cucumbers.
Scientists from the David H. Murdock Research Institute built a car with a zucchini and supplies from the genetics lab — test tubes, pipette tips, centrifuge grease and a ninja turtle for the driver. It won in the "most scientific" category.
At about 6:30 p.m., the races began.
Waltrip, with microphone in hand, offered color commentary of the races as the cars ran down homemade tracks.
Most of the cars went down the track without a problem, but others took a little longer on their run, either spinning around and around or riding the wall.
Eight-year-old Logan Pattison's car, a zucchini painted black and decorated with pirate flags, won a couple of heats. He and his father gave the car a shiny finish and a flag pole on the back.
"We're in the heart of race country," said Leah Chester-Davis of N.C. State, "and this campus is dedicated to human nutrition. It just seemed like a perfect fit."
And the kids had fun, too.
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