Adult Pinewood Derby


Guest Scott
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Guest Scott

Just for fun since a lot of us are holed up.  True story.

Our ward (it was actually a three ward activity) used to (maybe they still do, we moved 1.5 years ago) have an adult/family Pinewood Derby every year.   Unlike the cub scout one, this one was rule-less and a free for all.  So we didn't burn the church down, the only unofficial rule was that we shouldn't do combustion.

In addition to the race, is a party and bake sale auction for the scouts and a dinner, and some other party games as well.

A lot of adults and families would work on their cars all year.  They take time to work on their cars, add motors, batteries, CO2 cartridges, propellers, etc.  A lot of them are really fancy and take hours and hours or work and a lot of ingenuity.

Five years ago, we decided to enter for the first time.

Here’s an approximation of the conversations that took place.

Week before the race:

Ward Member C : "Hey Scott, I heard you are in the race this year.   How’s the car coming?  You going to try and beat Ward Members A and B.  They always win.   We’re going to try and beat them this year".

Me:  "We haven’t started working on it yet.  We’ll also try our best to beat them".

Ward Member C :  "Better hurry!  The race is only in a week!"

Day of the race:

Everyone is showing off their cars at the ward dinner and excited for the race.   Our family is the only one not showing their car off.   I had a closed shoebox.   A lot of people would ask, “Let us see your car, we want to see it”.  We turned them down each time until the dinner and other activities were nearly finished.

Finally, too many people wanted to see it.

Ward Member A’s teenage son (friend of my son’s):   “Us and Ward Member B always win.  Are you going to try and beat us?”.

My son:   "Yes".

Ward Member A’s son:  “Show us your car”.

Us:  “OK, you can look in the box”. 

Other people start gathering around to have a look in the mysterious shoebox.   People, adults and kids alike look in the box and start laughing and are puzzled.

“No, show us your real car.   The car is the shoebox hasn’t even been opened yet.  There’s nothing in that shoebox but an unopened, unbuilt pinewood derby car and a severed Barbie head".

Us:  “This is our real car.   We haven’t started building it yet.   The race doesn’t start for another 20 minutes.  We still have plenty of time.

Ward Member A:   “Whatever.  To tell you the truth I was hoping that you would enter the race since your always talking about engineering stuff.  (Smug sigh).  I guess it’s still down to us and Ward Member B.  Again.🙄

Me:  “That cake you bought at the auction.  Can we have it if we beat you and give you our cake if we don’t?  I think there is still at least a chance that we can win”.

Ward Member A:   “Without a car?”

Me:   “We have a car.  It’s in the box”. 

Ward Member A:   “That’s really your car?”

Me:   “Well most of it.  We haven’t built it yet.  I have this old piece of carpet molding and don’t forget about Barbie’s head.   I was also going to borrow my wife and daughter’s hair elastics and see if I can find a wooden spoon in the kitchen”.  

Ward Member A:  “That’s it; and you really think this will make your car the fastest?”

Me:  “That is it and I don’t think our car is the fastest.  None of us said our car was the fastest. Our car is probably the slowest car here.   We don’t want the fastest car.  We want to win".

Ward Member A:  (Laughs).  “Well I guess you had better get cracking.   The race starts in a few minutes”.🤣

We then got a hammer from the car and built our car. It took just under six minutes to build.  I was right.  Our car was the slowest car in the race.

Who won the cake?

Edited by Scott
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13 minutes ago, Scott said:

We then got a hammer from the car and built our car. It took just under six minutes to build.  I was right.  Our car was the slowest car in the race.

Who won the cake?

So did you build side walls extending orthogonally from your racer to make sure no one could pass you?

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Guest Scott
22 minutes ago, Vort said:

So did you build side walls extending orthogonally from your racer to make sure no one could pass you?

You're close.

Here was the car:

car2.thumb.jpg.a2e1296759b83cc44e9b88c49ee50001.jpg

The carpet molding slides back and forth, depending on our postion on the track.

Some people thought it was funny and some were mad.  I completely threw the race because it made the speed of any car irrelevant.  Whoever raced us was eliminated.

Our car was the slowest, but Barbie's head would (almost) always cross the finish line first.  A lot of people didn't like that, but it was a fun way to stir the pot.

In the end though, Ward Member B still got first.  We got second.  We still beat Ward member A and got the cake.  We beat everyone except for Ward Member B and only at the end.

Our car didn't have much weight so Ward Member B figured out that if he held his car back with his fingers until ours was half way down the track, once he released his car, it would speed down the track and could knock ours off the track.  If we would have had a little more weight on the car, we would have got first.

We also won some sour patch kids and a plaque:

car3.thumb.jpg.461b6abc336599239deb8af5dbc60588.jpg

I was hoping for first, but second was still satifying considering we only spent less than six minutes on the car.   Winning second with the slowest car seemed like a lot more fun than winning with the fastest car.

The next year, the "rule-less" pinewood derby race suddenly had rules so we couldn't do it again. 

Edited by Scott
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