2012 Pine Wood Racing for our kids is very competitive.

Yesterday my two Grandkids took top class honors & placed #1 & #2 in the final eliminations My oldest grandson was undefeated in every run with a top 208-mph run. The top 1/3 of the pine wood cars were running in the 205-206-mph so competition was close. It's un-believable how high the build quality of these pine wood derby cars has improved over the years. Dads spend more time & effort than the kids. All the dad's spend quality build time with their sons and that's good. My son-in-law had our guys shape, sand & paint, but he spent many hours tweeking everything to perfection. It was a fun day with about 100++ kids, parents, grandparents, friends cheering on their favorites. I am soooo proud of my two grandsons (7 & 10-yrs.) winning for grandfather (Papa). Here's a few photo's of the winning Pine Wood Derby Cars.

Any other Dad's out there doing the Pine Wood Derby Cars????
Tom

Cool! Proud moment! We still have my son's car on display in the book case in the parlor.

Any other Dad's out there doing the Pine Wood Derby Cars????
Tom
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Ohhh, Yeah......did the Pinewood Derby with both of my sons & now my Grandson. Heart Attack City it is! Incredible excitement as the elims get down to the end. Turns out his den is populated with kids who have NASA engineers for dads & he only pulled out a 4th--Just wait 'til next year, yeah!

[quote name='wndsrfr' date='Feb 12 2012, 02:19 PM' post='1623561']
Any other Dad's out there doing the Pine Wood Derby Cars????
Tom
[/quote]


Ohhh, Yeah......did the Pinewood Derby with both of my sons & now my Grandson. Heart Attack City it is! Incredible excitement as the elims get down to the end. Turns out his den is populated with kids who have NASA engineers for dads & he only pulled out a 4th--Just wait 'til next year, yeah!
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You are so right about the incredible talent the dad's have. Our place was full of Auto engrs. and more engrs. My son-in-law spent over $500 bucks on special fixtures to set the axles, CD of instuructions to set up the suspension, micro polished the axles, high density weights low in the car, special placing near the centerline & on & on. I am waiting for my son-in-law to send me the CD for next year when I help, son-in-law was very anal about perfection. It was so exciting when (6) cars lined up for the final trophy run and my guys came in #1 & #2. The place rocked with shouts of joy from my whole family.
It's about building memories forever.
Tom

Sure, Back in 1958 I built a derby car with my dad. Back then you got a piece of wood, 4 tacks (spindles), 4 plastic wheels and two small wooden axles. The axles stuck out like the ones in this picture.



So, you have a 100 kids and about a million heats to determine the winner. So I made it to the semi final and when I went to pick up the car at the finish I noticed the wheels were buckled up. One of the starters to remove competition from his kids car simply pressed down on my car busting the spindles through the wooden axles. Day over.

So I showed it to my dad and he promptly went over and punched the guy in the face.

This Pine Wood Derby Stuff sure was exciting!!!

I didn't understand all the commotion until years later,... but we went and got ice cream cones after.

Unfortunately, it's more about the Dads rather than the kids. Although the kids get a lesson in competition, cheating, engineering etc.

Elliot,

I agree with you. The kid standing next to mine built his derby car himself and I feel sorry for him. They gave everyone a token metal award, but you can see the dis-appointment in his face.

It fees good to win, but life is cruel.

Tom

That sucks. There ought to be a class for the kids who build their own car. Pinewood is supposed to be about the kids, not the dads.

What was the lesson the kid on the end learned today? You can't win by showing initiative and being self reliant.

Zach

My two boys were in different packs in different times for the pinewood experience.
The first group was very competitive with it "understood" that the fathers had alot of hands on time in the cars. This really wasn't any different than when I ran my car in the 70's. When it came time for my youngest to build, he expected the same level of tuning and finish. Both boys worked on the cars quite abit, and I supervised the critical tuning that is well known now. The slight rub was this last group was not as competitive amongst the dads and his car did well to the finals(though not winning). The common experience that I saw between all the generations, was that a kid that barely sanded and got some kind of color on the block of wood without any father help, can do very well and beat the tuned cars. This imperfect venue is an opportunity for teaching kids on many levels if it is recognized for what it is.
It's all about communication at all levels.

Click to view attachmentMy son and I did the Pinewood. He is a Tiger Cub (age 6). He did some of the sanding, all of the painting, and applied the decals. I polished the axles and applied weights to bring it up to 5oz. He got 2nd place.

It was a fun experience. He's already talking about the design and color of next years car. He's the one in the middle.

Jim

We had a competition with my older scouts. It was a no rules pinewood derby. Dads were encouraged to help and the boys and dads had a great time. One kid built a rocket powered car. It was awesome. The best one was a car powered by Co2 cartridges. It was super fast! Good times!

I am Cubmaster for a pack of 130 boys. We had our derby on Saturday and it was a great time as always. We had 86 scout cars registered and a dozen or more sibling/vintage/parent cars. We ran 86 heats for the scouts and racing was very close. I was especially proud of the work that the boys put in. I make it a point to emphasize to the parents that they need to let the boy build the car. The boy needs to design it, he needs to sand it, he needs to paint it. Dad/Mom can help.... but it's got to be the boy's car. They really did a great job this year.

Top time of the day went to a boy and his single mom.....they got it just right. We don't hold the parent/sibling cars to the strictest of rules... they are just running for fun, but we give a trophy for the fastest sibling car. It always makes me smile when a little sister gets to take home the trophy for fastest sibling car.

As I ran around all morning talking for 3 hours straight, calling the races..... it was wonderful to see the many generations of families all chearing each other on and everybody having a great time. Makes all of the long hours worth it.

Mike

Our Pack has a special trophy called "Judges' Choice". The judges are told to pick the car that best exemplifies the ideal of the Pinewood Derby, the one that clearly demonstrates that it was built by the Cub Scout himself.

It's great to see the pride in a boy's face for getting a trophy for a car that HE did all the work on, rather than racing a car that his dad built, that he likely wasn't allowed to touch until the last minute when he hands it to the starter...

Our race is this weekend.