Pinewood Derby

Recently my sons embarked on a much anticipated and long standing tradition in Cub Scouts: The Pinewood Derby. "Why would Ryan be doing a car to since he's not a Scout", you say? Well ask him if' he's a scout and see what his answer is ;-)

I still remember working on my derby cars many years ago with my father, and I wanted the same experience I had with my father with my sons.

So construction began with much anticipation. Alexander was excited and enthusiastic and Ryan was just thrilled he was being included. Alexander has drawn up a plan and knew in has head what he wanted to do, including having a "Big Red" car.

Construction began with a trip to Poppa's house to use the band saw. Alex couldn't believe he was using such a dangerous tool!

Eventually 3 members of team danger left with 30 fingers, so we did OK, and the boys did a great job.



 
Ryan couldn't believe he was able to spray paint. More got on the car than him, so that was a small win.

I also discovered that Ryan likes putting holes in things ;-)


Alex did a great job weighting and then weighing his car. He knows all about gravity, friction, and over coming frictionand the car weighed a perfect 5 oz.

So we survived the experience and had two raceable derby cars. Danger Daddy did a "bit" of tweaking when all scouts were in bed, to see what we could do about some speed. ;-)

Anyway, the roadsters were ready:

Alexander's "Big Red"

 Ryan's "Police Car"

And race day arrived:

At the end of the day, Ryan had the second fastest sibling car (out of 5-6), and I'm pretty sure the winner was way over 5 oz. Next year, so will Ryan's sibling car ;-)

After some fun races, Alexander's car emerged as a continual winner. He survived all the way through the last heat and took home 6TH PLACE! out of about maybe 70 scouts. So the day was won and Team Danger left happy.

And then I was asked this on the way home: "Daddy, next year can we try to win?"