We built a scaled-down version of the Winenermobile and took it to Maker Faire Kansas City to race it in the Power Racing Series and we won!

Yeah, that all sounds a little crazy, but that’s the sort of thing that happens at Milwaukee Makerspace…

I think it was mainly Kathy’s idea to build a Wienermobile, since “Oscar Mayer Weinermobile” [sic] was on the “hit list” of desired vehicles for the series.

Building it involved carving the body (dog and bun) from foam and then covering it with fiberglass to create a solid structure. It was messy and time consuming, but it turned out great!

Because the Power Racing Series is all very last minute, here’s what we had just a few weeks before Maker Faire KC. A pile of parts still not fully assembled. Kyle spent a lot of time putting things together in the last two weeks while Pete worked on figuring out the electronics. Somehow it all worked in the end.

People ask how it drives, and hey, it drives like a tiny Wienermobile! Actually, Kyle said it’s like riding a quad, and he proved to be our best wiener rider. Most other people got thrown off the wiener at least once, but he held on tight and rode the wiener to victory!

(While the Wienermobile is a fast car, the Power Racing Series also awards points for being “awesome” and we managed to have the most awesome vehicle of the weekend, racking up the most Moxie points helped us secure the overall win for the race weekend.)

If you like hot dogs, you’ll have another chance to catch this winning wiener at Maker Faire Detroit and then again at Maker Faire Milwaukee.