2010 Pinewood Derby AAR

Where to begin, where to begin?

Wow. Another year, another "Superbowl of Cub Scouts" is now behind us. Weeks of careful preparation, countless hours of toil, meticulous schedules and such all brought together in the Derby to bring scores of Scouts and their families together in the quintessential quest to answer that one burning question:

Whose father has access to the most state-of-the art machining equipment?

No, I kid, I kid. We had some spectacular races this year, many of them having the first place car separated from second place by literally only hundredths of a second. In TheBoy's rank (Bear), only 1.3 seconds - over four races cumulatively - separated first place from last place. My son came in fifth, and only 0.045 seconds - again for all four races total - separated him from third place. That is some seriously tight racing, and the boys' attitudes could not have been more mature and sportsmanlike.

I am VERY proud of all my Scouts.

Let me tell you something. We had a first this year, at least it was a first for the entire time I've been with the pack. We had a Scout whose car was unable to finish the race - his father had accidentally gotten glue in the axle of one of the wheels when securing the axle to the car. The first trip down the track, this poor boy's car made it down the incline and then stopped in the straightaway - here's the track setup for a visual:

Pinewood Derby Track

The track is 40' long with a 6' drop over 16', leaving 24' of flat track. The cars are released at the top together, which starts the timer, and a photoelectric eye at the end stops the timer when the cars cross the finish line. Here's what it looks like at the top:

Car's Eye View

(sorry about the lousy job cropping. I didn't feel right posting pictures of other folks' kids, and didn't have the time for a proper edit...)

Anyways, this boy's car made it about 3/4 of the way down the track and just stopped. Every kid's nightmare (Every father's nightmare too). We cleared the track and gave the car to the boy's dad for some emergency repairs, and ran races until his car came back up. As we waited for the repairs to be completed, I talked with the Scouts about sportsmanship and how I appreciated their patience while we waited for this car to be fixed.

Well, dad gets it fixed and we set it up for its second race. With a DNF, it's already out of the running for a trophy, but maybe he could salvage something in the last three runs. Well, no, because it made it 3/4 of the way down and stopped again. No dice. This time dad just pulls it from the race entirely.

At the end of that rank's racing, I called that Scout up first. He had tears in his eyes, certainly understandable for a kid who'd worked hard on his car only to have one little thing take him out. I thanked him for participating, and shook his hand as I told the rest of the Scouts that [name] was understandably disappointed - all the hard work he put into his car to not finish - but that he was showing excellent sportsmanship by trying his best and not giving up.

The rest of the boys - all ranks - gave him a standing ovation.

I will never cease to be amazed by my boys. They *all* impressed me at the Derby with that. Other than that, we had a drama-free race. No dads rushed the stage this year; no one stormed out of the building because they didn't get a trophy - in the adult race! This was my first year as Cubmaster, which meant that rather than simply handing the cars off as I had the past two years, I was the one actually calling the countdown and getting the boys riled up and excited about racing. My in-laws were in attendance, and my father-in-law actually commented to my wife that I was "pretty good at that".

Heh.

Here's what the layout looks like behind the scenes:

Staging of Cars

We set up all the cars for a certain rank on the table, and the Assistant Cubmaster hands me the four cars to race each heat. I put them on the track and double check the names and lanes with our Committee chair (he runs the track software on his laptop), then it's GO TIME. Each car runs four races - one race on each of the four lanes of the track - then the times are added up and the lowest cumulative time wins. This can lead to some consternation among the parents - theoretically, a Scout's car could win all four races and still not come on first (or even second) if you have a large rank. I haven't seen it happen, but it is possible. What *has* happened, though, is that one Scout's car will not race until the 4th or 5th heat.

But it all works out in the end, and I get to spend most of the day screaming at the top of my lungs and generally making a complete fool of myself:

Cubmaster G.

But you know what? I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world...

That is all.