Pinewood Derby

It took me a while to actually post this, but better late then never. Landon and Mason started Cub Scouts not too long ago and with that came their first experience with the annual Pinewood Derby. Admittedly, I was just as excited as they were. My original intention was to use this as some quality father-son time, but in the end we decided that choosing their car design, sanding and painting was contribution enough on their part (with a little touch-up work by dad, of course).


Landon wanted a car like King Dinoco on the movie Cars. Luckily he settled for something "similar" to that.



Mason originally wanted a car like Lightning McQueen, but after watching how long it took dad to produce Dinoco he opted (after a little persuasion on my part) for something fast and red, so he ended up with a variant of the classic wedge shape, which was much easier for dad to produce.



Going into the race I was a bit nervous as to how the cars would do. All the tricks to making a fast car that I read about on the internet seemed a bit advanced for my shop and my skills so I aligned the wheels the best I could, applied graphite powder and called it good. I had thought Landon's car was going to do better based on the tests I ran at home, but it was Mason's that ended up performing better and even taking 3rd place in his den. Shows you how much I know about making these cars! With two entries I figure I had twice as good of odds as the rest of the dads. Both Landon and Mason had a great time and were pretty good sports about the whole thing.





Of course, the winning car was named "Blah" and was done mostly by the scout's own efforts. Maybe next year we'll follow that strategy.