Bubbles, races, toil and trouble for team

They blew soap bubbles, handed out buckets of Double Bubble, gave away thousands of bottles of water, passed out coupons and cheered their sudsmobile on to a reasonably good finish Sunday in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. All in all, it was quite a weekend for the Bubbles Car Wash Racing Team.

Venturing into motor sports for the first time, the locallybased chain signed a sponsorship deal only weeks ago for the Edmonton Indy weekend with driver Joey McColm.

Despite nearly catching fire a few hours before the flag was dropped, then losing second gear after only 11 laps, the Dodge finished 13th in a field of 21 — less than 13 seconds behind the winner in the 161-kilometre race.

“It was a great experience for sure,” Natasha Toffoli, the chief operating officer for Bubbles, said. “We will definitely consider doing this again next year. … ”

Introduced to hotrods by her father, Toffoli decided to ante up when she got a call earlier this month from McColm, a 26-year-old engineer who recently relocated to Edmonton and uses his car to promote numerous charitable, environmental and green campaigns.

After a barbecue and a wash Thursday on Whyte Avenue, the car was transported to the City Centre Airport, where it raced all weekend with the names of 360 people — each who had donated $5 to charity — painted across the hood.

In all, $4,500 was raised for the local food bank and Wash Away Thirst, an organization through which car washes across the United States and Canada collect funds for drinking-water projects in Third World countries.

In addition, a raffle was held for two honourary positions on the car’s pit crew, one an employee of the chain, the other a customer. The latter was won by Cory Tymchuk.

Overall, Toffoli was pleased with the way things turned out, despite a few bumps along the road. At one point, the race promoter tried to prevent her from giving away promotional items as teams were doing the same thing. Toffoli, who said she decided to sponsor a team as a business investment, ignored the directive.