Derby Talk

Another year and another race. We had our race yesterday. My youngest son is crossing over this year, so it was our last Cub Scout race.

We had 3 entries (well 4 actually). Ryan ran his car with the scouts and Evan and I ran in the Open division. Evan also raced his pack champion car from a couple of year's back, thus the 4 cars.

Ryan totally surprised me. I had very little time to help him on his car, since January is a crazy month for my software business (almost seemed like everyone in the world had their races Jan 25 or Jan 26). During one of our workshops he went ahead and cut out his car on the scroll saw, before I knew it. He made the car only 6" long and the front slots ended up being closer to the end than on the back. I figured it was his car and that is the way he wanted it, so I let it be.

Friday was check-in day and we didn't even have his wheels and axles done. I gave him a crash refresher on sanding the wheels and doing his axles and said go at it. He did a great job. We did a quick lube and slapped the wheels on and secured the weights. We didn't really do any alignment on it and used the original slots.

The result was a 2nd place in the whole pack, out of 50 kids. I told him I was very proud of him, since he did the great majority of the work on the car. He lost to a car that had the ultra light machined wheels (they were technically allowed by our rules). He's off to districts in April.

Here's his car:


For our open division, the rules were more relaxed. It basically had to fit the track and be no more than 5oz. I disqualified myself after the race, which made Evan the winner of the Open Division, complete with bragging rights. I'll post the story about my car in another thread, but will tantalize you with the photo.

Here's Evan's "Always on Time" car. He's 13 and did everything except painting (we were running out of time, so I did that part).


Here's my "Outlaw" car, inspired by Randy Davis. I call it the "Screaming Mimi". Let's just say, it blew the competition away

Looks like Ryan is a pro already. Congrats to all.

I guess I should clarify my statement about being surprised by Ryan. It wasn't that I didn't think that he could do a good job on those things. It's that his attention span is very short. Yet, he was able to do a lot without much supervision and keep on task.

Well, we had our district races today. This was our last Pinewood Derby, as my youngest, Ryan, has crossed over to Boy Scouts. He ended up getting the 3rd Place trophy for speed for Webelos II. Not a bad way to close things out. The difference between 3rd and 4th place was 0.002 seconds. His car was only 6" long, so for this race we added a segment of popsicle stick to the front to make it the full 7". I think that extra little potential energy was what put him over the edge and got him the trophy.

So, my family (since all of us, even my wife, have been involved in a lot of races) is officially "retired" from running Pinewood Derbies. I may "consult" to help next year's pack and district coordinators, but it is time for someone else to step forward and take the reins.

I won't be totally out of being personally involved in this type of racing. I will still be supplying a track setup for Awana clubs in our area that don't have one, so they can put on a Grand Prix race.