The Derby

Some time ago The Boy got a kit for a pinewood derby car at scouts. My immediate thought, “not my area.” Little did I know, after casually mentioning “pinewood derby” to my mother that I come from a long line of good lookin’ and good racin’ cars. I now know it is in my blood to be “my area.”

Then, all of the sudden, out of nowhere, it became time for the derby. So this week David took The Boy to a friends to cut the car. Then next night David painted it. Then yesterday (day of derby) I painted on some stripes. It was lookin’ pretty smooth. Then David came home from work to take it to add some weight and put the wheels on. Let’s just say it didn’t go quite as smoothly as one would have thought. The ending result was not such a smooth lookin’ car. I sincerely hope that my car-restoring-grandfather is not rolling over in his grave.

When we arrived at the Pack Meeting last night I wasn’t prepared for any part of it. I wasn’t prepared for the mass amounts of people. For the little box you had to put the car into, to make sure it was the right size and nothing would catch underneath. For the official little scale that showed how off the little car was in regards to its weight. For any of it really.

And yet even with the sad looking state of the car The Boy really couldn’t have cared less what it looked like. He was thrilled to be at scouts. Thrilled when it was his cars turn to race. Thrilled when it placed second, out of two. Thrilled with every other car that raced.

His car is the blue blur. As there were only two Tiger Scouts they raced their cars twice. Again The Boy was thrilled. As the top two finishers for each group gets to go to the district races his car gets to move on. Thrilled

So lessons learned. Don’t wait until the week of to do the car. Pinewood derby cars are “my area”. And find some other means for adding weight.

Next year we will be so ahead of our game. You live and you learn.