Pinewood Derby, Baby!

Oh boy, oh boy.  The good old Pinewood Derby.  This was an event we knew would come once Asher was a Cub Scout, but I can't say it was one we were super excited about tackling.  Everybody knows that an 8 year old isn't going to do his own car all by himself.  That's just not what happens because who is going to hand their boy a saw and some drills and tell them, "Good luck, buddy!"  Nope, that's just not how it's done.  SO, we had a great book to give us a good jumping off place, I helped mark up the little block of wood, and Corey was off to cut it.  Things went okay, but not exactly as planned.  Still, it seemed like it might work out.

The day of the race (of course), Asher had it all painted up in his very own design (all by himself, yay!) and Corey added some weights to it that he had carefully hand picked himself.  All looked to be fine and dandy, but the car was just not moving like it should when we gave it a trial run. 

Corey (a little desparately) called up our friend Danny, who is a passionate scouter and an experienced pinewood derby-er.  In a very short time, Corey went to his house and came back with what looked like the same car, but when it rolled along it was apparent that there had been some definite changes made.  Good changes.  Changes that helped Asher to end up with a winning car. 

 

At the actual event, Asher excitedly ran his car in race after race, and won nearly every time.  I believe there was one other car that was faster, but it belonged to one of the Webelos, so Asher's was still a winner amongst his age group and beyond.  He was ecstatic!  It was a huge relief to Corey too, because he was feeling really bad about what was going on before the Danny modifications.  Other dads congratulated Corey (and Ash) on such a huge success his first time out...he came out looking like a champ too!  But, we were sure to give credit where it was due.

Beck had a car too, which he was really proud of, but thankfully didn't need to be in any official races. He had fun running his after the regular races and can't wait to do it for real.

This first year was a big success, but we were definitely sponsored by some kind service from a very nice friend.  We've all vowed to start earlier and do better next year!  The kids loved this event!