today was the pack 205’s annual pinewood derby. if you’re not familiar with a pinewood derby just imagine 100 kids and their dads taking a piece of pine and converting it into a gravity led speed demon. it’s an emotion ridden day. kids enter with high hopes and then slowly but surely all but 20 get those high hopes unmercifully crushed. it’s a great family day.
i know this from experience. the first year i did a pinewood derby with one of my children was horrible. our car raced four times and it never once crossed the finish line. it was horrible.
slowly but surely we have improved. this year noah wanted to get the “judges’ favorite” award and as i discussed earlier he wanted an ice cream sandwich car. so we built it. it looks very much like a real ice cream sandwich. we spent most of our time working on the design and very little working on axles. the axles really are the thing that determines how fast you car goes. you have to sand them down and then polish them if you really want your car to go. i did a little of this but not near as much as last year. last year i spent a week polishing the axles. this year it was only a day. i was pleasantly surprised when noah’s car racked up 2 second places. that was the good news. the bad news was that he then earned 2 fourth places. still not too bad.
the best part was that noah’s car was hands down everyone’s favorite. there was no doubt about him winning the “judges’ favorite” award. it happened just like he wanted it too. you can go here to see noah with his medal for “judges’ favorite.”