The Derby

Ian has only been a cub scout for a month and today he got to participate in his first Pine Wood Derby.

He designed his car and went to the wood shop with his den about two weeks ago. His Dad went with him too. He spent some time sanding and painting it until he decided it was done. They also got a kit from the wood shop to help you sand down the nails that act as the axles. You really can spend a lot building the perfect car that will fly down the course. Ian told me about all sorts of books and kits that they sell so you can get all the secrets to making the perfect winner.

I wanted to make sure it was Ian's project so I tried really hard to let him do what he wanted when they came back from cutting the body. He decided it was going to be green (his favorite color) and he added some brown and gold and sort of dabbed it all around to make it look rusty or old. He was going for scales because he wanted it to look like a snake. I think it sort of looks a bit more like a frog but, oh well.

We actually took it to the post office earlier in the week to see exactly how much it weighed and the post lady knew exactly what it was and happily placed it on the scale. We were just a little shy of the 5 oz that is allowed. So at the official weigh in they gave him one more washer to glue to the bottom and that brought him to about a hundredth of an ounce off the 5 ounce limit.

I never realized how serious cubs and their leaders take the Derby. He had his weigh in on Thursday and the car was placed in a little white styrofoam box where it had to stay and was kept under lock and key until race day.

Here is Molly waiting for the races to begin.

Each boys car raced three times against different cars each time. Ian's car seemed to do well. He won one by quite a bit and barely squeaked out a win on another and on the third came in 2nd to what ended up being the car that took the overall best time.  So despite having a tire pop off just before one of the races his car seemed to do great!

This is the practice track that the scouts used after their cars raced.

When the ranks were announced I was shocked to hear that Ian's car got first place in our ward's pack. His even did better than some of the boys' cars that take this race very serious and are out to WIN! His time was 6.837 seconds. The next fastest time was 6.863.  And what was even more amazing was that his car was ranked third overall. His car was the third fastest in our stake or I guess it is a Den, I don't know all the scout terminalogy. (I guess sanding down the nails worked!) So he could go to the district race. We decided to decline that honor.  We have heard some real horror stories about that event and decided this derby was enough for us.

So it was an exciting morning and our boy is very proud of his little green car!