Treadmill Racing

Submission 1,145

About

Treadmill Racing refers to a series of YouTube, TikTok and Instagram videos in which toy cars and other object race against each other on a constantly running treadmill, with the person filming also commenting on the race. Started by a series of viral videos posted in 2020, the trend was then popularized by several YouTube and TikTok channels launched in 2021.

History

On April 24th, 2020, YouTuber^[1] Steve Wilkins posted a video titled "Michigan 400 – Treadmill Series Race #1" in which 16 toy NASCAR cars raced against each other on a running treadmill, with Wilkins providing commentary. The video (shown below) received over 271,000 views in three years.

Starting in January 2021, Steve Wilkins posted more similar videos on YouTube. For example, the second video in the series, posted^[2] on January 31st, 2021, received over 578,000 views in three years (shown below, left). On March 25th, 2021, the channel posted^[3] its fourth treadmill racing video. The upload went viral, accumulating over 3.4 million views in three years (shown below, right).

Following the success of Steve Wilkins videos, several YouTube and TikTok channels specializing on this type of content were launched. On April 7th, 2021, Treadmill Championship Racing^[4] (@treadmillracing on TikTok)^[5] posted its first video. On June 28th, 2021, Treadmill Guy^[6] (@thetreadmillguy on TikTok)^[7] made its first upload.

In two years, Treadmill Championship Racing accumulated over 11,900 subscribers on YouTube and 431,000 followers on TikTok, while Treadmill Guy garnered over 2.1 million subscribers on YouTube and 4.1 million followers on TikTok (most popular YouTube videos by both channels shown below, left and right).

Other notable TikTok and YouTube channels specializing on treadmill racing videos include @treadmillpoolballracing^[8] (331,000 TikTok followers) and @f1treadmillracing^[9] (47,600 TikTok followers).

Highlights

On April 17th, 2021, an unknown Redditor uploaded a treadmill racing short by Treadmill Championship Racing to the /r/nextfuckinglevel^[10] subreddit, where it received over 100,000 upvotes in three years.

In 2023, treadmill racing videos posted by Treadmill Guy on TikTok and YouTube repeatedly went viral on social media as they were reposted to other platforms. For example, July 21st and September 28th reposts on iFunny^[11]^[12] received over 10,500 smiles and 5,500 smiles in four and two months, respectively (shown below, left and right).

On November 19th, 2023, X^[13] user @TheCensoredRock made a repost that received over 2,300 reposts and 10,000 likes in two days.

Jelle's Marble Runs

Jelle's Marble Runs is the YouTube channel of Jelle Bakker, a Dutch marble enthusiast who grew popular staging races and competitions between numerous marbles. The channel presents races and competitions as part of a "Marblelympics" (a portmanteau of "marble" and "Olympics"), dubbing the competitions with English commentary and filling in canned crowd noise over an audience of marbles.