My son Paul and I have been building our 5th one the past few days.

Not sure what the current technology is for them now but here's mine from yesteryear. My design but Dad's carving. The black thing in the cockpit is a lead weight because the vehicle was too light. Can't remember how well it did but she was in a good number of races.

Let's see, we were living in Cali (San Jose) at that time and I was in 1st/2nd grade. I graduated high school in 1985 @ age 18 so someone here with the inclination can do the math and figure out my age

asdf

asdf

asdf

Dude! I'm the race director for the AWANA pinewood derby at our church. We have competitions for speed and design. We've have some cool cars in our household: coke bottles, pigs, pickles.. My number 2 son is in the garage now working on a Superman one. Great fun.

And why do none of them look like teeners?

21?

No, my age when I was in Cub Scouts. I'm 37 now.

no

I did when I was in Cub Scouts. Cant remember where I put them tho....

Here's a couple.
Check your rules and make sure your cars are at the maximum allowed weight. More weight means faster downhill speed.
On each of my cars I made provisions for adding and subtracting weight. That way I could make last minute adjustments if the scales at check-in weren't calibrated like mine.
Lead fishing weights work well.

more

more

another pic

Ive got a whole bunch of em.. Me and dad did them for a while in cub scouts.. He put a motor on his, and raced mine, after mine beat everyone's.. I beat it.. Then I added a second 9V battery to his, hehehehehehe. I think I'll make a 914 one when I dont have anything else to do (hmm like 4 years from now??)

Andrew

Here's some custom dereby cars my son and I did when he as in cubscouts. Great fun!

Let's see close-ups of those, Hawk.

Here's ours... My son dean was in scouts- I enjoyed the class for the parents. My cars were all show and no go. My son Dean's back car was the fast one. Lot's of fun! Dave

Oops, too large of file! We had a lot of fun with Scouts- I got to teach my son some model building skills. Dave H