Failing to the Finish Line

Matthew Parker and his friends Beezy and Nelson, the members of the Square One Club, are searching for their next big invention. After tossing around silly ideas like riding vacuum cleaners and microwave lunchboxes, Matthew shares a design he has been working on: a small go-kart engine with its pistons arranged in a circle instead of a row, making it lighter, smaller, and more powerful than a normal engine. Beezy is thrilled by the promise of speed, while cautious Nelson worries it might be too fast, but he finally agrees to the project.

The club takes the design to Eugene Meltsner at the college, where his well-meaning but accident-prone new lab assistant, Horace, keeps spilling chemicals and setting off small disasters. Eugene admires Matthew's ingenuity and works out a safe fuel mixture for the engine, warning that a stronger mix could overheat the engine and even make it explode. The kids build their go-kart, and on its first test run Beezy sets a new track record. Nelson runs everything by the book, insisting on helmets and seat belts, because "Checklists save lives, Beezy."

The club keeps making improvements, but soon the times stop dropping, and a worrying rattle shows up in the steering. Matthew refuses to be satisfied. Convinced Eugene miscalculated, he wants to try a riskier fuel mixture, but when the club checks with Eugene, he says Matthew's math is wrong and the kart has reached its maximum speed. He tells the kids to be proud and patient, since real breakthroughs take years. When Matthew keeps pushing, Eugene mentions, purely in theory, that a fuel called nitromethane could produce a wickedly fast ride, though it is unstable and highly combustible, and proper lab testing couldn't start for five weeks.

Five weeks feels like forever to Matthew. After another frustrating day of flat times and a quarrel with Nelson, he goes back to the lab while Eugene is out and lets Horace believe that Eugene has sent him to pick up nitromethane. Horace hands over a whole liter. Back at the track, Matthew calms his friends' fears by claiming the fuel was Eugene's idea. They pour the foul-smelling nitromethane into the kart, but just before the test run, Nelson notices Beezy isn't wearing a helmet and refuses to let the run start without it. While all three go off to hunt for the missing helmet, Eugene discovers what Horace has done and pedals frantically to the track shouting, "Cease and desist immediately!" He arrives just in time to watch the go-kart explode in a ball of smoke, with no one inside it.

Relieved that the children are safe, Eugene demands answers, and Matthew's deception unravels in front of his friends. Eugene marches him home for a talk with his parents. Later, Matthew returns to the clubhouse to apologize, admitting he was impatient, that he lied and stole, and that he was a bad friend and teammate. Eugene explains the lesson with a picture the kids instantly understand: they could get a faster lap by cutting across the field, but that would be cheating. "It's how you get the fastest time," he tells them, and cutting safety or cutting corners on what's right will never truly get you what you want. Not wanting their inventive spark to go out, Eugene offers to become the club's mentor. Matthew's parents have banned go-karts and anything with an engine, so the club happily starts dreaming up new projects, from self-lacing roller skates to a rocket-powered pogo stick, while their new mentor firmly draws the line at strapping rockets to anyone's body.