Yesterday was our District's Regional Pinewood Derby race. Basically, the top three finishers in all 22 Packs in the District meet and race, divided into three groups: Tigers, Wolves/Bears, and WeBeLoS. There were nearly four dozen Tiger cubs racing, almost 100 Wolves and Bears, and just under 90 WeBeLoS. Each car races in each of the four lanes on the track, so the number of entrants determines the number of heats. Yes, we ran nearly 250 races yesterday.
Trophies are awarded to the first through fourth places in each group, with the fastest racer out of the entire group getting an additional trophy. Competition is fierce, and it's pretty easy to see which cars were entirely dad-built compared to the ones that had at least some Scout input. There's no realistic way to check, so it's honor-system driven, but it's especially sweet when a car that has obviously been made by dad gets beat out by a true Scout's car.
We had a few glitches - it wouldn't be a Pinewood Derby without glitches - but everything was easily overcome (well, except having to vacate the church in a hurry because a funeral had started in the main hall!). It's a long day - I was there by 8AM, and didn't get home until 4 - and for most of the time there I was running around like a madman. It's a lot of fun, but I'm really glad it's only once a year!
And TheBoy did well - he won three out of four races and came in well in the Top Ten for the 90+ WeBeLoS - so he was pretty happy. As was his dad.
That is all.
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2 comments:
Pinewood derby was one of my fondest memories of Scouting and in fact in my later years when I become a Boy Scout and then a Scouter I ran a pinewood derby or two and the magic was still there. As to the "Dad" cars we found it really effective to run an "all comers" round where we let dads bring their cars and race them sometimes letting dads build their own cars means you get more scout built cars. When I was a Webelo as our project to give back to our pack we built a new pinewood track ok in all reality one of the dads who had a full shop built it and we as scouts did some minor assembly and painted it but it was pretty cool to go back 10yrs later and still see that track in use. Keep up the good work and I hope you boy continues onto Boy Scouts he will be a better man for it.
Good for him, and thank you for your time and effort! Without the parents, Scouting wouldn't be as successful as it is!
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