Watch: Ontario family races toy cars in Treadmill Series Races

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If you own a treadmill and a collection of toy cars, allow us to introduce you to your new COVID-lockdown pastime: treadmill racing. 

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Created by Burlington real estate broker Steve Wilkins and his two sons, the races’ setup is pretty simple. You take a collection of regular Hot Wheels vehicles and arrange them in some sort of pole position on a treadmill with the back end of the track elevated so the cars travel down the slope as the track moves. 

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Watch: Ontario family races toy cars in Treadmill Series Races Back to video

Gravity, and the little cars’ toy axles do the rest. Here’s what it looks like: 

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Wilkins said the “series” was born one day last year when he found his then 9-year-old son playing on the treadmill with some cars.  

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“He had the cars racing by taping some string onto 4 or 5 cars and had the treadmill on,” says Wilkins. “At first, I was like ‘hey, don’t ruin the treadmill,’ but then I got into it. I told my brother about it and sent him a video we’d made, and it was his idea to get rid of the string and tip the treadmill so the cars are pushed forward.”

The Wilkins did the first few videos for fun, simply enjoying the ways the toys acted like actual race cars, appearing to drift past each other, or clipping into the sides and flying off the back of the treadmill, which reaches speeds of up to 20 km/h. They would commentate on the action live as it happened.   

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“We were probably just as surprised that it physically worked as anyone,” says Wilkins. “We were like ‘how is this happening? How are they staying on the track?’ It almost seemed like they were defying gravity in a way.”

After leaving the videos online for a number of months, they logged back on to discover some of them had gone viral and now had hundreds of thousands of views and days worth of viewing time. So they started making more, upping production value slightly with some checkered tape down the sides of the treadmill and some light video editing. 

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Today the Wilkins continue to run the races, commentating on them live and using “Dad’s” real estate business cards as the platinum sponsor. 

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“We don’t take it too seriously,” says Wilkins. “We know it’s low production value. We know we’re not professionals. It’s fun. We’re just having a fun time with it. And the fact that people are seeing it is kind of neat.”

You can check out more Treadmill Races or subscribe to the action on Steve Wilkins’ YouTube channel here .