Pinewood Derby

It is a time honored tradition for fathers and sons to labor over rectangular pieces of pine wood and craft aerodynamic racing machines. Or, thus I have learned. When we received Kaden's derby car kit box I opened it to find a piece of wood a few nails and some wheels. I turned it over a couple times and then looked at Jason and asked, "How the crap do you make a car out of this?" To which he replied, "How do you think?" After a moment of serious contemplation I responded pretty confidently, "With a chisel." Apparently that was a completely absurd answer based on the expression on Jason's face as he burst out laughing. After sticking my tongue out at him, I put the piece of wood back in the box and turned the entire project over to Jason and his Eagle scout expertise to help Kaden.

Which was a good move on my part. As it turns out there are all sorts of rules and guidelines you have to follow when building a derby car. Not to mention the use of extremely dangerous and loud power tools.

Jason took Kaden to his parent's house to build the derby car. First Kaden decided on a design. He wanted a car that looked like a pencil resting on two erasers. Together Jason and Kaden drew up the design on graph paper, measured the angles and marked the wood for cutting. Then out to the garage they went to saw away at the block of wood.

Kaden was very careful. Jason helped guide him and after a few cuts the pencil car took shape.

Then it was time to sand....the hand sanding lasted all of two minutes!

Then they were back in the garage were Jason whipped out his dad's belt sander. That got the job done in nothing flat! I like Jason's style....he doesn't mess around!
With the car all cut and sanded it was ready for paint. It took several coats of different colored paint before Kaden finally decided on just the right color for his pencil and the erasers.
Kaden was extremely proud of his finished product. After all the cutting the car only weighed in at 2.5 oz. It needed to be closer to 5 oz. so Jason drilled a hole from the back and added a lead weight thingy. According to our scale it was 4.9 oz. Perfect!
Nearly all of our scouts from the ward were at the Derby. It was a lot of fun to see them all together.

Jason and Kaden lined up to weigh in. It was all very official! I had no idea it was such a big deal. I have learned so much being Kaden's Wolf leader. I absolutely scouts!

Kaden's car weighed in at 4.9 oz. He could have added some more weight, but he wasn't worried about .1 oz.

Kaden took 3rd in every race he ran. I love that Kaden was just excited to be a participant. He wasn't crushed that he didn't win a race. In fact he was happy for his friends if they beat him. He said that next year he will work to build a faster car. He has such a great attitude!

Kaden's friend Gage won in the Wolf's group.

While Kaden's didn't win the race, he did receive the award for "Most Clever" derby car, which he was thrilled about!

I had heard horror stories about scouts crying and throwing fits when they didn't win. I had heard of dad's not allowing their boys to even touch their derby car at the event for fear they might scratch the paint or damage the axles. I had even heard of fights breaking out in the cultural hall between rival dads. From all that I heard I had concluded that the Derby had become more of a competition between fathers as opposed to an event for the scouts. I was pleasantly surprised to find this was not the case in our ward. While a few small tears were shed, on the whole the scouts enjoyed themselves and displayed excellent sportsmanship. All though I was a tiny bit disappointed to not see at least one fanatical dad put on a show....maybe next year. hehehe