This year’s scouting Kub-Kar races in Niagara brought together both current Cub Scouts and scouts who blazed their own trails years ago.
Eight-year-old Charlie Squire is only in his first year of Cub Scouts but was joined by three generations of Cubs when he raced his car and placed third overall on Feb. 24.
Squire raced his Reese’s Pieces candy bar car that he built alongside dad Mark with both the St. Davids Cubs and at the regional competition in Welland on March 2.
Mark Squire was a Cub Scout in the early 1990s and his father, William Squire — Charlie’s grandfather — was a Cub leader at the time.
Squire, the father, brought his Kub-Kar TransAm replica that he built for a race for a Cub group he volunteered with at the Niagara Children’s Centre and Squire, the grandfather, brought one of his cars that he built to race in the 1990s.
As a scout, dad Mark Squire made multiple Kub-Kars to race.
“I made one in about 1990 that looked like my dad’s red Mustang convertible that he had,” he told The Lake Report.
With his knowledge of the cars, Squire helped his son Charlie assemble his first Kub-Kar.
“You get a Kub Kar kit which is sold through Scouts Canada. It comes with a block of wood and the four wheels and little nails that work as axles,” he said. “You mark out of the wood the shape of your car and the scout leaders help you cut it out on the saw. Once you get the shape cut out, you paint it and you’ve got yourself a race car.”
Squire added that this year’s scouts had some interesting cars, one was made to look like a watermelon and one modeled after a Nike running shoe.
Charlie Squire’s creation won an award for the most realistic-looking car.
“It really does look like a Reese’s bar. It’s been sitting in my office and I’ve picked it up a few times thinking it was chocolate,” Squire joked.
He learned a lot of valuable life skills in his time as a Scout and is happy to pass those skills along to his son, he said.
“We did a lot of camping which I still do, we go camping as a family now and I started that in Cubs,” he said. “And there’s still people that I’m friends with 30 years later that I met in Cubs.”
