St. Boniface Vikings (Part 1)

Saturdays of Thunder

When the local Soap Box Derby is held in St. Boniface, Kevin has his heart set on first prize. But the catch is that he must build his own soap box racer. Marva Lynn was at the beauty parlor with her sisters Delphine and Walburga. In the meantime, after taking a fatherhood quiz, Nolan discovers he understands next to nothing about his son. He goes to the National Fatherhood Institute, at the institution they give a book on fatherhood. He offers to help his son by building the racer together, and Kevin eventually agrees. Unfortunately, Nolan's less than adept building skills gives Kevin a very shoddy, rickety piece of junk for a racer named Li'l Lightnin'. This is especially so in comparison to Steve's personally designed and built space shuttle-like racer, Steve B-57. Steve and Kevin form an alliance vowing that either must somehow beat Danny and his very intimidating racer, the MIG-17, armed with every dirty trick in the book.

When the race is underway, Kevin can barely reach any kind of noticeable speed with Nolan's racer and becomes a laughingstock for it. Meanwhile, Steve has difficulty controlling his racer, as it is moving too fast, which eventually causes his racer to smoke-bust and burn. After getting injured, Steve finds that he can no longer race and opts for Kevin and himself to combine forces by having Kevin race Steve's racer over the racer he and Nolan built. Kevin seeing no other way to win agrees, which breaks Nolan's heart. When Kevin later apologizes and desires Nolan's best wishes, Nolan selfishly denounces both Kevin and Steve, telling Kevin to do whatever he likes. Dejected, Kevin gets ready to race in the final match with Steve's newly tuned racer. Having seen too much of Nolan's behavior towards Kevin, Marva Lynn confronts him and expresses her disappointment in him. She is quick to remind Nolan of the times she defended him in spite of everyone including her sisters, Delphine and Walburga, telling her that he is a terrible and incompetent father. Marva Lynn points out that his latest action in rejecting Kevin's choice to be a racer for Steve proves that he is a bad father himself and if this is how Nolan would rather behave himself, she tells him off that he had indeed proved her wrong and everyone else right about him being a horrible father. This statement makes Nolan feel worse and he quickly tells Marva Lynn to leave him alone with his depression.

At the house, Nolan thinks to himself about his selfish behavior, and realizing he has been learning a lot about Kevin, he goes straight to the fridge in the kitchen and reads the test that came from the institution. He does the test again and passes. He rushes off to the race to show his support to Kevin. At the starting line, Nolan wishes Kevin luck and tells the boy that no matter how the race turns out he will still be proud of him. The race is tough as Danny pulls every dirty trick in his arsenal, but eventually through his skill Kevin comes out on top and the "team" enjoy their victory. Kevin also meets his new hero, three time soap box champ Ronnie Beck, who hands Kevin his trophy. Kevin and Nolan act like sore winners, which embarrasses Marva Lynn who reminds them they should be good winners. Kevin then protests that this is the first time he won something and he may never do it again. Kevin shares a hug as Nolan finally becomes a good father to his son.

Meanwhile, Nolan and Kevin took their cousins Paul, Grady, Ed, Fran, Bill, Mick, Roy, Fred and Karl to the soda fountain, where Kevin did a great job for being a soap box racer.