11:16 AM: It’s that time of summer where growers have so much zucchini, you can run out of ideas for using it. Zucchini bread, roasted zucchini, sauteed zucchini … but that’s not all. Once a year, the West Seattle Farmers’ Market offers free zucchini and accessories to marketgoers so they can make and race “vegetable vehicles.” That’s happening at the south end of the market (California/Alaska) right now, until 1 pm, as explained in our preview! Big turnout.

1:22 PM: Adding photos by Dave Gershgorn for WSB:

Wide variety of zucchini racers took to the track – after Kiwanis Club of West Seattle volunteers helped with assembly:

Lots of options to contemplate:

Once they were ready to race, it was on to the track:

Notice the jumbo zucchini in the lower right of the photo above? 3 1/2-year-old Colette Steadman brought that from home, where she and her family grew it from seeds provided by the West Seattle Nursery (WSB sponsor) Growing Gardeners’ Club (explained in our preview):

Homegrown or not, every zucchini racer was a winner today.