Featured Teapot Racer: Octo 1

Look, it's waving at you!



Today's featured teapot racer is Octo 1, owned and operated by Stephanie McGillis.



The design of the teapot racer was fun and creative and so were the outfits worn by Stephanie and her family!

Octo 1 was one of the few racers to take advantage of practice time on the ramps, but that was when it was discovered that the batteries were not fully charged.



Proof that Octo 1 could run a little under its own power earlier in the day:


By race time, though, its get-up-and-go had got up and went. The batteries were too weak for it to run the course without help. Luckily, a plan was devised:



Octo 1 won two awards at the Jan. 23rd race at Renninger's Steampunk Industrial Show, "Most Splendid Design"



and "Most Dastardly Driver".



"Most Dastardly Driver" was new this race. I had explained it as an award for the most entertaining cheat, but it really was more than that. There is so much that can go wrong when one is traveling with a teapot racer and running it on an unfamiliar track. At our first race, the grass and rough terrain made it impossible for some of the remote control cars to move at all. This time, we had a contestant whose batteries were going dead before the race began. The "Most Dastardly Driver" is the person who can think on their feet. When things aren't going their way, they don't quit, they become creative.  They may not be able to finish the course in the way proscribed by the rules, but they will complete it in the most entertaining way possible. I jokingly told the children in the audience not to learn from this example of cheating, but in actuality, I hope the children watching learned from this example of good sportsmanship. Stephanie knew she wasn't going to win the Grand Champion trophy, but she was one of the most memorable and fun racers to watch.