This was the second year Dave and I ran the Pinewood Derby for our Scout Troop. We had around 20 kids from the Tiger, Wolf, Bear and Webelo Dens.
I worked for weeks before hand writing lists (and then lists of lists) and figuring out the stations and how everything would work. I had nightmares about forgetting something important! I know how hard the kids work on their cars and how excited they are to race so I wanted everything to be perfect.
Avery and Connor really look forward to making their Pinewood Derby cars and we printed out some templates from the Internet for the shapes. They spent an afternoon with Dave cutting out their cars, polishing axle's and sanding their cars to perfection. Connor and Avery's cars are the two cars at the bottom right in this picture. Avery's is the blue one with all the stickers and Connors is the red car with the black windshield.
The Outlaws: these are the cars that are made by the siblings or older scouts that are no longer eligible to race. Ella's car is the pink, green and white one. While I envisioned a car with butterflies, hearts and flowers, Ella had a different plan. It is a joker car. We couldn't find Lego joker that morning or he would have been glued in her car.
The races went well and other than making some changes to the set-up of chairs and such for next year, the whole derby went without a hitch (YEAH!!)
One thing I did differently this year is to make these "pit passes" for all the kids. I printed them from a site on-line and laminated them the morning of the derby. They really turned out cool and I think the kids loved having their own pass. It also helped the kids to remember what number their car was since the passes were all numbered.
This was Avery's last Derby. Next year he will be a Boy Scout and he can race as an outlaw but not as a Cub Scout. He really wanted to win a trophy this year. We encouraged him of course but the derby is always full of competition and truthfully we don't usually do very well.
Maybe it is the little men we always have glued to our cars (not very aerodynamic I guess).
Well as the races began, I noticed that the boys were doing well this year. They seemed to be coming in 1st or 2nd in every race. It was very exciting. We were getting close to the end of the races and Connor was 2nd and Avery was tied for 3rd. The race off began for 3rd place and Avery was a mess (he said he was almost in tears) and I could hardly breathe. They raced twice on different lanes and Avery won both races. It was really great. So we came home with 2nd and 3rd place (two of the three trophies I brought to the derby).
This is what Avery looked like for most of the races:
or this:
The boys have a trophy shelf in their room that is filled with trophies............from Dave and I when we were kids. They have never won a trophy on their own yet. Now we can box those old trophies back up (I never really understood the allure of having them out anyway) and they can show off something they won.
And no scouts post would be complete without a picture of the the Wolf Den:
