Drew's First Pinewood Derby

Drew recently had his first Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. He was excited to be able to build this project, since he has always liked that kind of thing. The same night that he got his box of parts, he sat down and sketched out a few different options of how he might want the car to look. He settled on a dragster looking design, and that was the car that he ended up building.


Andy helped him get the shape cut out and gave guidance as to how the process works. This was another instance when I was glad that we all live together again, since these two had a good time working on this together.


On the night before the race, Drew finished getting it painted and we took it to get weighed at his leaders' house. It was too light, so we had to come up with a plan to make it exactly 5 ounces. I got out my painters tape, which fortunately is the same color blue that he painted his car, and Drew ended up taping on 10 quarters to get it up to exactly 5 ounces.


On the day of the derby, there were a lot of cars.


And a lot of cub scouts... 3 packs racing together.


Drew's car took the lead in his first race. Of the three times that his car ran, he came in first, second, and first.


Drew jumps for joy at the finish line. The photos are blurry, but you get the idea, right?


A Dad even had the results and stats posted on the screen... pretty fancy compared to other pinewood derbies that I have been to.


In the end, out of all of those scouts, Drew came in third place and got this really cool plaque made by the lady holding the microphone in our ward. It's funny, because before the derby I was giving him all of these pep-talks about how he did such a great job on his car and not to be disappointed if his doesn't win. Hopefully this doesn't set the bar too high in years to come, but we were happy for the results and proud of him, not just for the 3rd place but because he was a really good sport with his friends and because he worked hard on it.


Here's a better photo of the plaque. Now I need to find a nice place to display it in his room, since it's the first "real" trophy that he has earned (as opposed to the participation ones that he got for being on sports teams).