When it comes to the sport of power tool drag racing aren’t we all winners, well at least that’s what we are saying because our racer never actually made it all the way down the track. An overcomplicated porta-band chain drive and suspension proved to be just too unreliable. A special thanks to the wonderful sponsorship of Columbus Idea Foundry, Bosch Tools, The Adcom Group, Ohio Power Tool and COSI for making it all possible.
Newcomer race team, with their racer “The Shredder” took down last year’s champion team racing the “Silver Streak” to become 2012 champions. This marks the first year a grinder powered the winning drag racer. It was a heated best of 3 showdown that went down to the final race but the 3 year reign of circular saw champions has come to a close. Chatter of next year’s racer designs were in heavy discussion as the races came to a close and as the large crowd of several hundred spectators dissipated it seemed like the prospect for 2013 race growing in size and competitiveness were pretty likely.
The crowed favorite racer was the “Lightning Bug” which resembled the ship Serenity from the very popular Sci-Fi series FireFly. It did respectable going down the track but the light up tail end with dry ice smoke exhausting from the rear would have been much more impressive with a nice dark tent. The family build team had a lot of fun with this and proved power tool drag racing is certainly for all ages and walks of life.
The 2012 races were held during the inaugural year of the Columbus Maker Faire which was also a very nice showing for the first go around. There was everything at this show including several booths from the local Reprap & MakerBot group, local artist, furniture designers, crafters, electric kit cars/motorcycles builder, the “bug man” showing off living insects, other local workshop/makerspaces and a variety of other groups.
See 84 more pictures in this Photo Album for the 2012 races. Check back next summer for more information on 2013 Ohio Tool Racing Championships at www.ToolRaces.com.
