Pinewood Derby

As I mentioned yesterday, we spent about 5 hours at the Hope United Methodist Church in Edwardsburg for the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby races.  There were around 35 or so racers.  Pictured to the right was my sons car.  He got together with Grandpa for 4 different Monday evenings to work on it.  Sounded like a good job for Grandpa and Trevor because I don’t know crap about tools and I am far from being handy.  But Trevor sat down and drew what he wanted for his car so he designed it, the shape and the paint scheme.  And they set to work.  It looked awesome and Trevor was so excited for the race.

When we got there, he kept saying how long the track was.  Finally I asked him, are you worried your car isn’t going to make it to the end?  He was.  But the races started and it had no problems reaching the finish line.  They raced 3 cars at a time, as you can tell to the left, for 12 rounds.  So when it was finished, each car raced 4 times in each lane to make it fair.  Trevor’s car placed 1st and 2nd for most of the races, I only remember him getting last in one race.

        

The setup was pretty awesome I must say.  One of the Cub Scout leaders is obviously very good with computers and electronics.  It was set up so that each race was random as well as the 4 times per track that I mentioned above.  He had a laser set up at the start line and one at the finish line.  Immediately after the race was finished, the results posted up on a screen for everyone to see.  I figured it would be people at the finish line with stopwatches.  You would think I would have been prepared for the electronic setup, but I wasn’t.  I was very impressed.

I think even if Trevor hadn’t had a car in the race, he would have had a blast.  He loved watching all the races from the sidelines.  He doesn’t show much emotion at home when he does something.  He’s such a laid back, nonchalant boy.  Kind of like his father.  So it’s always great to see him having so much fun.  Even at Boy Scouts on Thursday night, when all the boys are sitting at the tables, just doing projects and things.  He just usually sits there and does his project with little emotion on his face.  As you can tell in these photos, so much emotion.  I really love seeing him this happy.  It’s such a rarity that he shows it.

After 6 rounds of racing, they stopped and had a lunch break.  They got subs from Walmart and divided it up into huge pieces.  You got a sandwich, chips, cookie and a drink all for $2.  The Scout and 1 parents meal were paid so if anyone else came, they had to pay for theirs.  Which if you know my family, they came.  My family supports everybody in what they do.  Along with Cheri, Samantha and I, Trevor was also rooted on by 2 cousins, 2 grandparents and 2 great-grandparents.  I think everyone that came had a great time.  Except for maybe Cheri, but that was due to her being sore and not feeling well.  I do think she had a good time watching though.  And we hung out with some friends as well so we chatted a bit too.

Each racer sat on a chair at the end of the track so they could watch the pinewood cars coming right at them.  As you can tell from the picture on the right, Trevor was all into it.  You sat in the chair in accordance to where your car was on the track.  Trevor is sitting in the lane 1 chair on that picture as well as the one below.  I’m guessing by his reactions in the picture, that was one of his 1st place finishes.

The scoring went by total time in all the races.  So the finishes in the race didn’t really matter in the overall picture.  They gave out trophies for the top finisher in each pack.  Trevor is a Tiger Scout which was given the name “Dragonfly’s”.  He didn’t place tops in his pack but he did make the top 20 out of all the racers there.  He ended up placing 15th overall. But by the end of the races, he didn’t care.  He had such a great time.  He was such a happy boy.  He’s growing up so fast.  The way he talks sometimes, he has a maturity about himself.  Not always, but once in awhile you get a glimpse of it.  After the races, they did a quick race where siblings could go against each other. I wish I had known about this as Samantha probably would have made one as well. Although they compete at everything they do so I don’t know if they really needed something else to compete in.

During the sibling races, they figured out all the winners and after they handed out the trophies.  Everyone got a participation trophy.  Trevor was pumped about it, he said he gets to add it to his medal from baseball last year (participation) and the medal he got from Cheri’s cake selling for the most amount of money during the cake sale for scouts.  But this was his first trophy.

           

      Trevor with is car and trophy.                       Trevor with his Great Grandparents

              

Trevor with grandpa.  Who built the car.                                    Trevor and I

After they had the awards he went over to a friends house from Scouts and spent the night over there.  So he had an exciting day.  And it was truly a great day at the races.  Who needs NASCAR?