How to run an Awana Grand Prix: a leader's planning guide
Start eight weeks out: hand out kits with your club's rules, hold a build workshop, line up volunteers who aren't Awana leaders, and load your clubbers into your race software the week before. On race night, race each club separately, judge design during the racing, and save the awards for the end.
Grand Prix night is one of the best nights on the Awana calendar. Kids are excited for weeks, parents and kids build something together, and families who've never been to church show up to cheer. Awana's own tips page calls it one of the most exciting outreach events a club can hold.
It also takes some planning. Here's a week-by-week plan, written for the commander or coordinator who just said yes.
Eight weeks out: kits and rules
- Pick a date and reserve the room, the track and a projector.
- Order or count car kits. Some churches sell them at club for a few dollars, with a rule that cars can't be reused from last year.
- Write down your rules and hand them out with every kit: weight, length, width, wheels, and what's allowed. Awana's manual is the starting point, and your club can adjust it. Clear rules up front prevent arguments at inspection.
- Decide who races. Usually Cubbies, Sparks and T&T as separate groups, each with its own trophies. Puggles or a parents' class can race for fun.
Five weeks out: the build workshop
Hold a drop-in workshop on a Saturday. Set up a saw, sandpaper, scales and graphite, and invite anyone handy in the church to help. It matters most for kids whose families don't have tools at home, or who don't have a parent available to help. A workshop is often what makes the night feel like it's for everyone.
Three weeks out: volunteers
Here's a tip straight from Awana's list that we'd underline: recruit people who aren't Awana leaders to run the race, so the leaders are free to spend the night with families. That's especially valuable if it's an outreach night.
You'll want a check-in and inspection team, a pit boss to keep cars in order, one person per lane to load cars, a starter, a finish judge, someone running the laptop, an emcee, and two or three design judges. Our guide to running heats explains what each job does on the night.
The week before: set up the race
- Load your clubbers into the software ahead of time. Awana's tips list makes this point too: names typed in before race night mean check-in is just tapping cars in as they pass inspection.
- Do a dry run with the real track, laptop and projector. Race a few cars all the way through the awards.
- Plan your program: welcome, any devotion or announcements, racing club by club, design judging, awards, and how you'll close.
- Get the awards ready. Speed trophies for each club, plus design awards like Best Paint Job, Most Creative and Best in Show.
Race night, start to finish
- Check-in and inspection (30 to 45 minutes). Weigh and measure each car against your rules, give families a few minutes to fix anything, then put cars in the pit in race order.
- Welcome. Greet families, explain how the night works, and share whatever your church wants to say. Keep it short; the kids are vibrating.
- Race by club. Run each club's heats together, starting with the youngest. Everyone races once in every lane, so the results come down to the cars, not the lanes. Make each schedule with our free heat chart generator or let your software build it.
- Design judging during the racing. Judges walk the display table while heats run, so you don't need a pause later.
- Championship final (optional). Race the fastest cars from each club against each other.
- Awards. Club by club, design awards too, with every child getting something to take home.
Consider a participation award for every child. Plenty of clubs give one, and a certificate with the child's name and car costs almost nothing.
Running it with Derby Dashboard
Derby Dashboard runs Grand Prix-style races the same way it runs pinewood derbies. When you set up your group as Awana, it starts you with Puggles, Cubbies, Sparks and T&T as groups, and an Awana rule set based on Awana's manual that you can edit to match your club's specs. A few parts are especially handy on Grand Prix night:
- Pre-race slides on the big screen while families arrive: a welcome, the schedule, a thank-you to your volunteers.
- Each club as its own race, with the current heat on the projector so kids know when they're up.
- Judge mode, so you don't need an electronic timer. A judge taps the finish order.
- An awards reveal on the screen, club by club, including special awards like Best Paint Job.
- On Club Plus: announcements between heats, a second screen with standings, online sign-up ahead of time, and a link parents can follow on their phones.
It keeps working without Wi-Fi once it's installed, which matters in a lot of fellowship halls. There's more on our Awana Grand Prix page.