On Saturday at Indianpolis Motor Speedway, just a day before the “Greatest Spectacle in Motorsport,” a different race took place — one that involved some very young drivers. Four boys met at the brickyard to race Hot Wheels on a mile-long track to see whose car was the fastest in an event called the “World’s Best Driver Championship.”
Each boy had a Chevy Camaro Hot Wheels car and received some coaching tips from racing legend Mario Andretti and his nephew, John Andretti. More than 1,400 pieces of iconic orange track were used to construct the raceway, which was punctuated with more than 1,000 booster packs to keep cars zooming along. The size of the track, which stretched along the front straight at IMS, set a world record for the longest toy track ever.
With a wave of the flag, the kids let their cars go and they were off. Top speeds clocked in at nearly 600 scale miles per hour — that’s just over nine miles an hour in actual speeds, but blindingly quick at 1:64 scale. When it was all over, Christopher Bienusa, a 12-year-old from Alexandria, Minnesota was the winner, and, like all champions at the brickyard on Memorial Day wekend, he celebrated by drinking some milk (chocolate in his case) and kissed the bricks at the start/finish line. For those that couldn’t race at Indianapolis, Hot Wheels has some plans so you can build your own Indianapolis Motor Speedway at home.
Disclosure: Hot Wheels sent GeekDad the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Well, the orange track version, not the real thing.)
Glad to see the kid in red win… he didn’t even get his car off first if you watch carefully. It jumps slightly on take off.
Cool video. For more Fastest Hot Wheels cars, check out fastesthotwheels.com.