A truck inner tube might work, but it would be a litle heavy.
Maybe you can take 3 bags of #62's and lock them end to end in sections long enuff to fit front to back.
I guess the good part of the conversion would be the firewall would not want to pop out the front.
What about just using a Gerbal running on a wheel hooked to a small generator driving an electric motor that keep the rubber bands tight so that you don't have to use so many?
Ed M.