Excellent Bad Idea: Power Wheels Drag Racing

It’s time for another Excellent Bad Idea, this time involving children drag racing modified Power Wheels. Depending on how much you hover over your kids, you’ll be somewhere between thinking this idea is incredible and calling the authorities. But before casting judgment, learn more about this growing motorsport for little tykes.

Watching double decker buses racing on a track is unbelievable.

We already know about adults racing Power Wheels on dangerous downhill courses, with plenty of chaos ensuing. But those are grown men who should understand how poor of a choice they’re making.

In this motorsport, it’s kids who actually fit in Power Wheels going head-to-head in drag races with prepped tracks, wheelie bars, and other elements ripped straight out of the grown-up sport.

Some of the races are even done at actual drag strips with the Christmas tree and everything. Although the kids don’t go a quarter or eighth of a mile, since that honestly would take too long. You see, even though the Power Wheels are modified, they’re not exactly fast, just quicker than the ultra-slow toys.

But other races are held in parking lots or inside warehouses. The surface may be prepped still, although not quite like at a regulation drag strip, or they might be on just rough pavement. Either way, the little kids rip down the course, eager to edge out the competition.

Before anyone argues there’s no danger in the drag races, answer this: why do the kids wear helmets? Obviously, there’s at least some risk, but children also wear helmets when they ride bikes or a skateboard, so perhaps it’s at the same level.

One of the arguments for these events is it’s an accessible way to get kids interested in motorsports and give them experience with drag racing. Some are calling the racers the future of the grown-up sport.

Image via Trevor’s Fast Life/YouTube