Sunday, March 13, 2005

By CAROLYN SALAZAR
STAFF WRITER

OAKLAND - When the counting began, they stopped chasing each other and screaming wildly. Some even put away their Game Boys. And for a few seconds, in the Valley Middle School cafeteria crammed with children, there was a hushed silence.

"Gentlemen, start your engines," said Bob Taschler, the race's organizer, before a phalanx of young boys anxiously sitting cross-legged on the linoleum floor. "Are you ready to race?"

"Yeah!" they shouted giddily. "Woo-hoo!"

It was cheese against cheese, Lamborghini against Sponge Bob and a shiny black shark against a black-and-white cow named Moove Over in this singular, yet thrilling car race that brought together a smorgasbord of makeshift cars - and about 100 spirited children - for the "Champion of Champions" Pinewood Derby Run-off.

All the model cars had won previous competitions and were vying for the No. 1 spot in the finals.

Sponsored by the Iaoapogh Mountains District, a local Boy Scouts of America group that includes members from 13 towns, including Allendale, Franklin Lakes and Glen Rock, the derby was much more than a race. It also was a gallery of ingenious, and outlandish, handcrafted model cars that pitted a cheese-shaped auto with a mouse perched on top against a miniature car shaped like a giant pencil.

Although the youngsters were given free artistic rein, their vehicles had to meet stringent race specification guidelines. Each car could not be longer than 7 inches, no taller than 4 inches and could not weigh more than 5 ounces.

"Wow, look at that," said John Mullen, 7, a second-grader at Willard School in Ridgewood, as he marveled at the eclectic and colorful display of models. There were 72 cars in the main race, for boys between 7 and 11, and 22 in a smaller race for boys ages 5 and 6.

But John was equally proud of his own little race car, a yellow hourglass-shaped Firebird that he had spent months with his father, Pat Mullen, sawing and sandpapering and hammering and painting.

And how did he manage to do all that at such a young age?

"My dad did it," he admitted. "But I put all the stickers on it."

But the derby was not a beauty contest, so its focus was not on looks. Like any race, the objective was being the fastest and thrashing the rest, with the winners taking home a trophy. In the main race, Andrew Schoenberg of Glen Rock won first place, John Brady of Wyckoff won second and Quinn McHugh of Glen Rock won third, after a run-off. In the smaller race, Jack Weathers of Glen Rock won first place, William LaRossa of Allendale won second and Mike Szawaluk of Ridgewood won third.

As his car darted down a 32-foot aluminum runway set up on the cafeteria floor, 10-year-old Christopher Jacobs and his buddies shouted, "Go Patriots! Go Patriots!"

Christopher, a fourth-grader at Bogert Elementary in Upper Saddle River, named his car after the New England Patriots before they won Super Bowl XXXIX. He was hoping the team's win would rub off on his modest-looking red, white and blue car.

Christopher had already won previous races in his Boy Scout pack. He credited the football team for the wins. "Thank you, Patriots," he said.

He ended up in 17th place out of 72. Not bad.

But his father noted that the two were awarded with something more significant from the race.

"It's a nice father-and-son event," said Michael Jacobs, a Toys "R" Us executive. "We got to spent a lot of time together building [the car]."

During the competition, the Boy Scout troops, some in uniform and others in jeans and T-shirts, sat on the floor behind a blue tape stripe 2 feet from the racecourse. Parents were instructed to sit in chairs lined up in the middle of the cafeteria, but most stood up and wandered closer so they could root for their children, and their children's friends.

"Smile," they would shout as they clicked away with their cameras.

Three cars competed at a time, and a computer logged their race time. Each vehicle went through three heats.

"You get really nervous when your car is up," said Thorvald Arnell, 8, a second-grader at Woodside Avenue School in Franklin Lakes, as he eagerly waited for his car to race.

His classmate, 8-year-old Andrew Capirosso, admitted the race was "cool," but not always exhilarating.

"It's not really fun when you see your car gets third place," he said.

But overall, he noted, his car came in 13th place.

E-mail: salazar@northjersey.com