Car Racing Party -7yr- Hot Wheel Pipe Track

For my son's 7th birthday, he wanted a car-racing party. 

The guests arrived on a Friday evening, 24 boys in all.  The house was easy to find because I put signs up and down our street which read Dylan's Speedwayö or Dylan Grand Prix with arrows pointing toward the house.  In front of the house were large black checkered racing flags which I made from checkered fabric (Joanne's) and broom sticks. I  had a 2-foot wide strip leftover, which made a great table-runner.

As each driver arrived they were to register for the Dylan Grand Prix. I had a sign over a table which read Drivers Register Here. On the table was a clipboard with a page with two columns (Driver's Name, Sponsor's Phone #). The boy would write his name and his sponsor (parent) would put a phone number where they could be reached during the party, as most parents did not plan to stay.  Each boy was then handed a driver's license. I made these on my computer, using the logo from our state's driver's licenses, which made them look real authentic. I just scanned my driver's license in then cropped it down to the logo and inserted it onto the licenses.  Each boy's license had their photo which I scanned from the previous school year's yearbook.  It also had their name and address. Each license was then laminated.

Along with the license, they were handed a velcro wallet (dollar store) to keep it in. The wallet also contained eight Dylan Dollars which my sister made on her computer with a program she had. A Dylan Dollar looked just like a U.S. one-dollar bill, but it had my son's picture on it as well as some other little details that nobody probably even noticed like his age, his birthdate and his signature.  I'll explain what the Dylan Dollars are for in a minute. Once the boys were registered and armed with a driver's license, they went into the backyard which was covered with hotwheel tracks (he has a large collection, plus we borrowed from a few friends).

The tracks were coming off the fort, going down the slide, the steps, all over the grass, etc. The planters were dotted with 3 dozen 10ö racing flags (Orientaltrading.com), a racing banner consisting of 50 racing pennants spanned the backyard, and a large racing flag like the ones in front of the house was on the fort.  The boys played with my son's collection of 400 hotwheels while we waited for all the guests to arrive. I then announced that it was time for the Dylan Grand Prix and all drivers were to report to the patio for car assignments. I had wrapped a 14 cubed box with hotwheels wrapping paper, leaving an 8 square hole in the top. Inside were 24 new hotwheels, three of them marked with three stars. Each boy took his turn to reach into the box (no peaking) for a hotwheel.  This would be his car for the Dylan Grand Prix and they got to keep it. Each of the three boys who pulled out a marked car won a prize (a box of hotwheel tracks).

We then went to the side yard where I had set up two 24-foot pieces of 4 pvc cut in half lengthwise, making two half-pipe race tracks. The starting end was elevated about 2 feet. I had a large racing flag in my hand and would start each race, waving the flag.  Two boys at a time would send their cars down the half-pipes.  The winner would proceed to the next round. We repeated this process over and over until it got narrowed down to three winners. 2nd and 3rd place received a box of hotwheel tracks. First place received a 2-foot tall trophy topped with a silver cup and engraved with Dylan Grand Prix, 1st place, November, 2004. It was $20 on clearance at a local trophy store. 

After the race ended, my husband drove my sons's birthday present up to the house. We had bought him a go-kart.  The kids got a kick out of that, and we got a lot of great pictures of Dylan with his friends in his new ride. Then we all went into the backyard for pizza.  When they were done eating, we announced to the boys that we were going to the movies to see Hotwheels World Race which is an awesome movie for boys if you don't have it.  It's on DVD and  VHS at Target.  So the boys all lined up at the ticket booth which I had made out of a refrigerator box, complete with a plexy glass window with a speak hole and money slot. Most Home Depots carry plexy glass. You just need a hole saw and a handy husband.  I also happened to find the movie poster for the movie we were watching (ebay.com) and posted it with a Now Showing sign.  The boys bought their tickets to the movie using the Dylan Dollars that I had put in their wallets.

I made tickets up on the computer which had the date and price, the name of the movie, and the movie poster picture, which I had scanned from the dvd cover and downsized to fit on the tickets. After they bought their movie tickets, they went to the concession stand.  My mom and her friend ran the concession stand. They had bought white aprons from the craft store and painted Dylan Speedway Concessionsö on them, then went to a hamburger joint where the cooks wear those paper hats and asked if they could have two of them. They glued hot wheels onto them and wrote Dylan Speedway Concessions on them too.  They looked great! And they really hammed it up. They were a riot!

The concession stand had movie theatre size candy (5 kinds to choose from), popcorn in paper popcorn bags (restaurant supply store), and sodas in to-go cups with lids and straws.  I had made up signs with prices and of course one that said Dylan Speedway Concession Stand. They used their remaining Dylan Dollars there, and I made up the prices so that if they bought one of each thing, it would cost $2.50, leaving them with 50 cents in change which was paid in chocolate coins. My mom  would then bag their goods (brown lunch bags) and they went and sat on the grass in the backyard. 

Just before we started the movie we brought the cake to where the boys were sitting and sang happy birthday to Dylan and he blew out his candles. The cake of course had a race track, two hotwheels, and a sign that read Dylan Grand Prix. Then we started the movie which we shined on the wall in the backyard and the boys went nuts on all the sugar. Half-way through the movie we brought them their cake to eat while they watched the rest of the movie. 

After the movie was over, the boys played with the hotwheel tracks while they waited for their parents to pick them up.  Then they were given their party bags as they left. The party bags were black with handles and had red and yellow tissue (to represent flames) and two raceflags sticking out the top and inside  had a car-shaped note pad, a red pencil that said Thank you for coming. Dylan hotwheel fruit snacks, a hotwheel, a racecar shaped chocolate, Dylan Dollars, and a spiral notebook that had a picture of  Hotwheels World Race movie.  The boys had a great time, and are still talking about it, 3 months later.