Racecar Birthday Party Ideas

Vroom! Vroom! Zoom! Zoom! Youngsters just love cars, racing and anything that is in motion full speed ahead. Racecars are a popular birthday party theme. Whether your little one is into the Cars movie, starring Lightening McQueen, NASCAR, Speed Racer or just Match Box cars in general, you can use these tips and ideas to get on track and pull off a fun and easy Race Car themed birthday party.

Race Car Birthday Party Invitations:

My son is into Lightening McQueen, Speed Racer, NASCAR and Match Box cars so we went for a general racecar theme birthday party. We announced our party with invitations with classic checkered board flag black and white and asked our guest to “race on over to celebrate” with us as a clue to the theme of our party. We embellished our invitations with racing theme stickers that he could add on himself and choose personally for each guest. Creating a themed invitation helps give guests a clue as to what the birthday boy or girl is really into and it clearly helped some guests choose their gifts from Cars bubble bath to remote control cars.

Race Car Birthday Party Games & Activities:

This experienced Mom likes to keeps games and activities simple. I usually opt for one easy and short organized activity and another activity that is set up like a learning center where kids can choose to come and go.

Birthday Party Game: Red Light, Green Light with Steering Wheels

We saved the cardboard circles from frozen pizzas for a while and turned them into steering wheels. Here’s how:

About an inch in we drew a black line and colored in the edge. We drew and colored in a circle in the center. From the center we added three pairs of diagonal lines for the bars. For fun, my son added a racecar sticker in the center of each.

The game was a simple version of “Red light, green light.” We spray painted a “track” on our yard but you can come up with your own indoor or outdoor “track” idea.

After handing out the steering wheels, we put the racecar drivers on the track and I held up red, yellow and green paper as I called out “red light, yellow light or green light.”

It’s an easy game to play that last just minutes but let’s the kids “race out” some energy before you all sit down for birthday party festivities.

Birthday Party Activity: Freezer Paper Car Track

This is such a simple idea but this is where the little guests were drawn too and spent much of their time. We simply taped a long line of freezer paper to the porch. I handed out markers to my kids and let them add lines, stop signs and embellishments for driving cars. We put a box of Match Box cars at one end and let guests help themselves. Without any direction the little partiers were racing their cars from one end to the other.

Homemade Race Car Party Decorations:

We recycled black and white paper to create to create checkered flags. It was simply a matter of cutting out black squares and using a glue stick to arrange them in a checkered board pattern. We attached them to wooden grill skewers (you could use straws, chop sticks, twigs, whatever you have on hand) and plopped them in flower arrangements.

We also cut out tires from sticker and coloring books (again you find them in magazines) and put them on sticks to go in flower arrangements and also added them to party signs.

Creating your own homemade decorations saves money, is greener than buying stuff you won’t reuse and let’s your special birthday boy or girl have some hands on fun preparing for their birthday party.

Race Car Birthday Cake Tips:

Of course any cake maker can make you a race car cake but if you’re into making your own you can simply add a track and plop on some actual miniature race cars like Match Box cars, Lightening McQueen, Speed Racer or your favorite NASCAR car.

We decided to go homemade all the way and used Newman’s O’s (you could use Oreo’s) cookies for wheels. We also made the number on the racecar reflect my son’s age. We put racecar stickers like a “race day” sign, green flag and checkered flag on toothpicks for a 3-D effect.

The Bomb Party Favors:

This one will take either some luck in timing or planning ahead. We found racecar driver outfits and pit crew outfits on sale after Halloween. For $1.40 each, at 90% off, we outfitted each party guest in a dress up outfit that they could wear at the party and take home. This was “the bomb” party favor.

Little race car fans are often going vroom, vroom, zoom, zoom, up until and during a birthday party but parents can use these easy birthday party ideas to keep from spinning their wheels to throw a simple and fun race car themed birthday party. If you’re looking for more racecar fan fun you may these rip roarin’ NASCAR crafts and activities that you can use for party decorations, crafts or activities.