A squashing good time. Zucchini Races held at Franklin Farmers Market

FRANKLIN -- A zucchini is a zucchini, until you glue on googly eyes, slap it onto a set of  wheels and paste some paper rockets on it for added flair. Then it becomes a zucchini racer, ready and waiting to squash its competition.

That was exactly what went down at the Franklin Farmers Market on Sept. 10 as the Second Annual Zucchini Races were held.

Participants used zucchinis, summer squash, and even some plump tomatoes to create racing vehicles to be tested for speed on the official racing ramp, made of plywood. While some hopefuls chose to load up the beds of toy trucks with smaller zucchini logs, others strapped heftier zucchini atop a variety of toy cars, or inserted wheels directly into their squash and carved out a space for a miniature driver.

"I just got a zucchini and I just started putting aliens on it, and googly eyes," said Sophie Field, 10, who named her racing vehicle "Space Jam" -- an effort that won her a second place in one of the races.

Entries were placed in divisions, from the "heavy weights," to the middle and light weights. Spectators were also invited to vote for their favorites in different categories, such as "best use of vegetables," "best decorated," and "best name."

The event was sponsored by the Franklin Agricultural Commission.

"Our first race was in 2019," said Town Councilor Melanie Hamblen, a co-owner of Franklin Agway who helped run the races.  "I got the idea from a friend of mine who lived out in Washington state."

At that first race, she said, "we had someone run home after seeing the ramp and build a car and come back."

There were fewer than 15 squash cars then, she said, "but we had a lot of visitors to the market, voting for their favorites and thinking about next year."

"It’s a ton of fun," she said -- a whole squash load of fun, in fact.

This year garnered 23 squash and tomato racers -- many of which were created at the spur of the moment, some from squash bought at the Farmers Market.

Emma, 7, and Annabel Levy, 9, made a racer named "Blast Rocket" with help from Stella Lewis, 8, who provided a toy car to serve as the wheeled undercarriage.

"My dad bought the zucchini. And we all decorated it together," said Annabel.

The effort won her first place in the medium-weight division.

"I definitely loved doing it. I'm probably going to come again next year," she said.

Sophie said she and her brother, Ben, 6, went to the Zucchini Races expecting just to be spectators and to vote for their favorites in the different superlatives categories. "But when we figured out we could build our own, we did," she said. "It took us five to 10 minutes."

Jackson Stickney, 7, put a load of smaller zucchini into the back of one of his toy trucks and named the vehicle "Zucchini Harvesting," while his 5-year-old sister put together an entry using a toy dump truck. Her 8-pound "Lady and the Truck" entry won first place in the heavyweight division, while Charlotte Reed's 3/4-pound vehicle garnered first place in the small division.

Linda Noel, a member of the Agricultural Commission and owner of Linda's Tomatoes at Terrapin Farm on Lincoln Street, entered her own vehicle created using -- you guessed it -- a large tomato onto which she stuck googly eyes.

"I lost, but that's alright," she said, adding with a chuckle, "It smashed wonderfully."

She agreed with everyone that it was all a lot of fun.

"It was great fun, and the kids really loved it," she said.

And there will always be next year to see if a tomato can really squash the competition.